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Let's Go to a Baseball Museum! |
Next to the pleasure of reading a good baseball book may be the pleasure of visiting a good baseball museum, where we can relive the exciting moments of the past and become better acquainted with the fascinating characters who lived it.
Fifty years ago, when the term "baseball museum" seemed like an oxymoron, Harold Seymour couldn't imagine that anyone might want to visit such a place: "Who," he asked, "wants to look at Babe Ruth's old jockstrap?"
Today a good baseball museum, like a good baseball book, combines stimulating entertainment with fresh and solid information. Here are some choices to consider. And if you really want to know where you can see a famous player's old athletic supporter, just read on!
COOPERSTOWN HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, in Cooperstown, New York, is the ultimate destination for baseball enthusiasts as well as scholars. The Museum contains the most extensive array of baseball material in the world. Its exciting exhibits and collections are unrivaled anywhere. Ted Spencer, the Chief Curator of the Museum, presides over this treasure trove. You can even ask to see the baseball card set called Major League Writers, which includes the card for Dr. Harold Seymour!
The connected Research Library presents its own shows, displays, films, videos, and other amazing resources, especially for researchers.
Over fifty years--since I first began using the Library--it has expanded from a small room over the Museum with one manager into a great building with a large professional staff of archivists, librarians, and researchers. They provide assistance to journalists, students, college professors, authors, publishers, other libraries, and baseball club officials as well as the general public. At the Bookstore you can ask for the Seymour books and those that have won the annual Seymour Award!
Twice the Research Library has outgrown its premises into its present beautiful building, where the knowledgeable Tim Wiles is Director of Research. Have you a research question? Send him a message at
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. Also on the premises is Bruce Markusen, a SABR Award Winner, whose title is Senior Researcher, so your query might be handled by Bruce! For more on Bruce, see The Winners!
The entire establishment is open seven days a week for most of the year. It's located at 25 Main Street, Cooperstown, New York 13326. The main phone number of the Museum is 607-547-7200, and for the Library it's 607-547-0330.
While you're in town, walk down the street to Doubleday Field, named after the American General who didn't invent baseball. Guess whose ashes have been sprinkled on first base? To find out, click on Who's On First?
NEGRO LEAGUES BASEBALL MUSEUM
This museum keeps developing! Curator Raymond Doswell has all sorts of ideas for making the museum into a true service to the community as well as an informational display for visitors from outside. I met Ray at a Seymour Conference where he spoke enthusiastically about his plans for integrating this institution into the community.
Located in the historic "18th and Vine" district of Kansas city, The Negro Leagues Museum offers well-arranged exhibits and facts about the famous leagues that produced such wonderful players as Satchel Paige.
With its facilities arranged in the form of a baseball diamond, the Museum includes a History & Research center, a Museum Store, and an Action Center, where patrons can take part in computerized batting! Open every day except Monday, the Museum charges small admission fees. Its location: 1601 East 18th Street, Kansas City, MO 64108.
BASEBALL HERITAGE MUSEUM
Bob Zimmer has created an extensive museum devoted primarily to early Black and Latin players and teams like the Havana Sugar Kings and the Cleveland Buckeyes. He has a rich collection of souvenirs, pamphlets, programs, signs, autographs, photos, magazines, and other articles of great interest to baseball fans. His museum is located in the historic Gateway section of Cleveland, not far from Jacobs Field, at 2044 East Fourth Street. Contact Bob at
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CANADIAN BASEBALL HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM
Canada's Cooperstown, in St. Marys, Ontario, offers a complete experience, including displays of hundreds of artifacts (including a tribute to the women of the AllAmerican Girls Professional League, some of whom are Canadians), programs and activities, games on a on a full-sized baseball diamond, and an annual Induction Ceremony attracting as many as a thousand people a year. Tom Valcke, the President and CEO, sits up nights working on ideas for making this institution a lively and colorful place to visit. I know, for I have corresponded with him via e-mail at four in the morning.
Visit the Hall of Fame and Museum at 140 Queen Street East, in St. Mary's, situated on a 32-acre tract of its own and is open daily from June through October. The phone number is 519-284-1838. The town of St. Marys lies close to Stratford, where in a striking setting the Shakespeare Festival presents its plays and concerts. Both are close to the bigger city of London. That's west of Toronto, east of Detroit, and just across Lake Erie from my home town of Cleveland, Ohio. Check out the Museum's web site. You can email Tom at
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NORTHERN INDIANA CENTER FOR HISTORY
Although not devoted entirely to baseball, this center for history serves as the archive for the records of the famous All American Girls Baseball League of the 1940s, so if you're interested in the accomplishments of this league, you might want to drop in. Kevin Saldana is in charge. You can email him at
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. The Center, housed in a historic 1930s mansion (see a picture at http://centerforhistory.org) is located at 808 West Washington, South Bend, Indiana 46601, phone 574-235-9664. Email requests for informational tours to
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. The Center is open year-round on most days and features a low admission rate. Its exhibit on the AAGBL is a permanent one.
THE BASEBALL RELIQUARY
What are we to make of a museum without a permanent home? Executive Director Terry Cannon and Archivist/Historian Albert Kilchesty operate The Baseball Reliquary as an educational institution for the preservation and exhibition of baseball artifacts, currently functioning as a traveling museum, with exhibits throughout Southern California. But it is much more. It's a sort of Church of Baseball, with holy relics and a shrine or pantheon of past greats of the game.
Where else could you view a fragment of Abner Doubleday's skin, a cigar (partly smoked) belonging to Babe Ruth, a lock of Tom Dewhirst's hair, and Eddie Gaedel's athletic supporter? Only at Cannon's "Shrine of the Eternals." Nominees to the Shrine, whose members are currently an eclectic group with no restrictions on nomination (Eddie Gaedel is in the Shrine), are selected annually by the membership.
To learn of the Reliquary's latest scheduled event, email Californian William Cannon at
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, or write him at PO Box 1850, Monrovia, CA 91017. To support his efforts, which include informative publications, Cannon asks you to join the membership.
THE NATIONAL PASTIME: THE MUSEUM OF MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
A new building in Memphis, devoted to the rich history of the minor leagues, is taking shape as part of the "campus" of the local AAA minor-league baseball park. The backers of this project, who are working toward an opening in 2003 or 2004, plan to include a three-dimensional theater, holographic imaging, and interactive baseball activities. Rounding out the experience are a rooftop garden and picnic area.
Perhaps more important, the historians associated with this project are working to reaffirm that in this country it's minor-league baseball that's really the national pastime, since most of our pro players played not in the majors but in the minors. They estimate that we lack statistics for at least 200,000 players, so they have set up "The Minor League Museum Statistics Project" to locate and establish the career records and demographic data for all these players. What a gargantuan undertaking! Naturally, they solicit your help.
Who are these ambitious people? Dave Chase, former publisher of Baseball America, is the Director of the Project. Consultants are Ray Nemec, one of the founders of SABR, and Lloyd Johnson, past President and Executive Director of SABR. The database they anticipate compiling will supersede the incomplete and error-filled statistics now available.
The developers have set up three main research groups: Statistics, Biographical Information, and Original Research, the latter for leagues that have no information to build on. To volunteer for participation, email Lloyd Johnson,
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NATIONAL BASEBALL CONGRESS (NBC) HALL OF FAME
More than 500 major leaguers have played for summer college leagues governed by the NBC. An exhibit celebrating their youthful experience is in Lawrence-Dumont Stadium in Wichita, Kansas. Phone in advance, 316-267-3372, for hours of opening.
LOUISVILLE SLUGGER MUSEUM
You can handle some really odd and historic bats in the Oval Room, the main gallery of the Louisville Slugger Museum, where the history of baseball bats since 1884 gets the full treatment. It all starts at the building's entrance, with a 120-foot replica of the Babe's own bat. You can visit the factory, too. The Museum remains open daily all summer but closes Sundays in winter. It's at 800 W. Main Street in Louisville, phone 502-588-7228.
JAPAN'S BASEBALL HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM
If you're going to Tokyo you'll want to stop at the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, in the Tokyo Dome, which moved there in 1998 from its original home at Korakuen Stadium, where it opened in 1959.
The new Museum includes exhibits about famous players and their bats, special displays on Babe Ruth (his 1934 visit to Japan) and Sadaharu Oh (his amazing batting feats), the equipment of the 1890s, and videos of exciting baseball moments. Books in the Museum's library include an 1885 book, Kogai Yugiho, explaining baseball as part of the sports enjoyed around the world at that time, and the Official Baseball Encyclopedia of the Japanese Baseball Organization, with records from 1936 and players names available in a phonetic alphabet, so that those who haven't mastered Japanese characters can find them.
The Japanese Hall of Fame, dedicated in 1959, honors people like Matsutaro Shoriki, the founder of the Tokyo Giants and of pro baseball in Japan, and Isoo Abe of Waseda University, the founder of Japanese university baseball.
The Museum and Hall of Fame is closed most Mondays and reachable via subway. You can check on hours and charges before you travel by clicking on www.baseball-museum.or.jp/museum_e/index_e.htm.
MUSEUMS DEVOTED TO PLAYERS
Fans have established museums devoted to quite a few baseball heroes, like Ted Williams, whose establishment is at Hernando, Florida, and the Yogi Berra Museum at Montclair State University in Little Falls, New Jersey. SABR members get lower admission prices at many of these museums.
Bob Feller has established his own "Bob Feller Hometown Exhibit" in the town he came from. The statue of this famous pitcher Bob Feller in the front of Jacobs Field in Cleveland tells us how important Bob remains in Cleveland baseball history, but he never forgot his Iowa origins. His Hometown Exhibit in Van Meter, Iowa, celebrates his career in objects like trophies, photos, uniforms, and films. The display is open seven days a week and offers low entrance fees. You'll find Van Meter only 12 miles west of Des Moines and just minutes from the bridges of Madison County! Bob often shows up at this museum himself. The address is 310 Mill Street, Van Meter, IA 50261, phone 515-996-2806.
Signed photo of Bob Feller pitching for Cleveland in the 1940s; Statue of Bob Feller outside the entrance to Jacobs Field in Cleveland
By the way, did you know that Bob still makes frequent speaking appearances and tells wonderful stories? Selected as "Greatest Living Right-hand Pitcher" in 1969, Bob is also a member of the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown. He and his wife Anne live in Gates Mills, Ohio. Bob gave me the photos shown here.
Before you arrange your next vacation, why not check up on baseball museums in the vicinity of your destination? A good list is at www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/hallfame/ The Babe Ruth Birthplace and Orioles Museum in Baltimore, for example, is only a couple of blocks from Camden Yards. The museum often sponsors presentations by baseball authors. The Roger Maris Museum, in Fargo, North Dakota, Roger's own home town, offers free admission, at his request. The Ty Cobb Museum in Royston, Georgia, features his personal life as well as his career. In Jackson, Mississippi, you can visit the Dizzy Dean Museum, a collection that's now part of the Misssissippi Sports Hall of Fame, which also honors other players of local origin like Cool Papa Bell and Guy Bush.
If not a museum, then how about a baseball site like player monuments, historical monuments devoted to baseball, statues of baseball people, historical markers, and other memorials to baseball's heroes and to historic sites like old ball parks? A historic marker honoring Carlton Fisk, for example, is displayed in the town of Charlestown, New Hampshire, Fisk's home town, where he played high school sports.
You can investigate a list of sites like these by looking at David Burkett's www.hallowedground.org/, where you can check for data by the name of a player, the state you want to visit, or the category of historic place. Visit, for example, the Mordecai Brown Farm Site in Nyesville, Indiana. Oklahoma has seven such baseball sites, California has ten.
You can even visit the graves of Hall of Famers. Stew Thornley, a Minnesota SABR member, gives us a list of these grave sites at http://www.tc.umn.edu/~thorn017/halloffame_graves.html.
SPECIAL BASEBALL EXHIBITS
Many baseball museums and even non-baseball organizations, like historical societies, present special baseball exhibits that run for a few weeks or a few months. SABR takes part in many of these special exhibits or other baseball events. They want to be sure they're recognized at such baseball-related happenings as an important force in promoting the best of baseball, especially baseball scholarship. Here are some to keep in mind.
l. A big exhibit coming up, although not until 2003, will involve plenty of baseball, although it's about sport in Chicago. Elliott Gorn, Professor of History at Purdue University, who has written a brief history of American sports with Warren Goldstein, is preparing this exhibit for the Chicago Historical Society. This is going to be an extensive exhibit. To check on progress, contact Marty Cusack, Communications Manager for the Chicago Historical Society,
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2. SABR member Frank Ceresi, former Curator and Director of the National Sports Gallery in Washington gallery and now running a museum consulting business, is mounting an exhibit about Griffith Stadium for Howard University Hospital, which stands at the site of the original Stadium. The exhibit opened in September of 2001, with appearances of players and others connected with Griffith Stadium, including a fellow who once operated the scoreboard there: Bowie Kuhn. A campaign for funds to provide a permanent exhibit is in progress. Information on the work is at www.huhosp.org. Frank is at
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. Ceresi is also working with the Washington Historical Society to develop a City Museum, which will house exhibits relating to sports in the nation's capital. Have you any material he can use in this project?
3. Baseball as America, a touring exhibition from the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, celebrates America's romance with baseball and will tour ten museums in 2002-2003. The exhibit will feature many of the valued artifacts generally on display in Cooperstown. To find out when the exhibit is coming to your part of the country, go to http://baseballasamerica.org/schedule.htm. The Hall of Fame has prepared two books to accompany this exhibit. Contributors include Jules Tygiel, winner of the Seymour Award in 2001. Read about his book.
4. The Neighborhoods of Baseball, an ambitious project that could change the way urban communities view themselves and their history, is in the planning stage by Terry Cannon and Albert Kilchesty of The Baseball Reliquary, Inc. Four exhibitions in the Los Angeles area will demonstrate the strong historical relationship between community and baseball in Latin, Asian, and African American communities there, including baseball's vital contribution to Americanization. The exhibits will include programs, films, and publications that feature the history and value of baseball in those places, particular amateur and semipro ball-the heart of personal and group experience with baseball. This project, designed to enrich the understanding of the young about their own local history, expected to develop into a national educational display about the cherished place of baseball in our popular culture. Cannon and Kilchesty have applied to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a substantial grant to present the series of programs in 2003. I'm one of the consultants to this project. So is Dr. Sam Regalado, one of the reviewers of books for www.HaroldSeymour.com. Read about him at Our Reviewers. If you have ideas, information, or artifacts that you think might assist the organizers of this project, contact Albert Kilchesty, Archivist/Historian, The Baseball Reliquary, Inc., P.O. Box 1850, Monrovia, CA 91017, email
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BASEBALL CONVENTIONS AND CONFERENCES
The major events for sports associations are their annual conventions, which include speeches, panels, and activities that attendees can take part in, often including opportunities to attend a local ball game as well as other local events. People who go to these conventions include fans as well as historians and other baseball specialists.
The Society for American Baseball Research holds its annual conference for members in various cities each June. I have attended several of these conferences and found them stimulating. I've also given presentations at some. You can check on the venue of the next conference by visiting SABR's web site, http://www.SABR.com, or by emailing John Zajc at
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. SABR's annual Seymour Conference takes place annually in Cleveland about a month before the national convention. John Zajc is the source for information on that event, too. I usually attend these myself and often made presentations.
SABR members in many parts of the country have organized local chapters that welcome guests at their meetings. Greg Rhodes, whose book on the Cincinnati Reds placed among the finalists for Seymour Award in 1998 (read more at The Winners!), leads the Cincinnati group, called the Waite Hoyt-Lee Allen Chapter. If you're visiting Cincinnati, email Greg at
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for information on the next meeting. If you're in London, England, contact Mike Ross,
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, who heads the Bobby Thomson Chapter. If you're in Naples, Florida, check with Mel Poplock,
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, or Jack Zerby,
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. You can find out which SABR chapter operates in your home area by contacting John Zajc, who is SABR's Manager of Membership Services but handles a lot of other matters, too.
SABR members have formed nineteen committees to pool research on various aspects of baseball. Interested in joining others in performing baseball research? These committees welcome information and assistance. One SABR committee, called Women in Baseball, chaired by Dr. Leslie Heaphy of Canton, Ohio (
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), in the year 2000 named me one of the 25 most important people in women's baseball and awarded me a gorgeous red-and-brown baseball bat carved with my name, as well as a baseball signed by all Toronto Blue Jays. For more on this, click on www.DorothyJaneMills.com and go to Sports History.
Many members of the North American Society for Sport History--most of them are scholars and university professors--specialize in baseball history or biography. Quite a few of the book reviewers whose work appears on this site (see Our Reviewers.) are NASSH members. You can visit the NASSH web site at www.nassh.org.
If you become a member of associations like these, you'll receive valuable journals full of fascinating articles on sports history, along with newsletters, directories, and access to on-line communications among fans and scholars. SABR also operates a lending library of important scholarly material, including a copy of the Ph.D. dissertation written by Harold Seymour, "The Rise of Major League Baseball to 1891," which earned him the doctorate at Cornell University in 1956. For more information on Seymour's university experience, click on Section Two of this site, Stories about Harold Seymour, and scroll down to That Baseball Ph.D.
You can attend other conferences, too, like the annual Spring Training Conference (in Arizona) on the Historical and Sociological Impact of Baseball, held by Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, a magazine sponsored by the University of Nebraska Press at Lincoln. For information email Bill Kirwin, the journal's editor, at
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. Bill operates out of Edmonton, Alberta. He's Professor Emeritus at the University of Calgary.
Another group of scholars meets at Cooperstown each June to hold the annual Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball in the American Culture. These scholars learn about each other's work while enjoying the ambience of the famed Otesaga Hotel and the research advantages of Baseball's Hall of Fame and Museum. Learn about the next conference by consulting the Hall of Fame's web site, www.baseballhalloffame.org. For more things to do related to baseball, click on Baseball Links and on Are You a Collector?
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Last Updated on Thursday, 12 February 2009 17:21 |
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