Although we spent a lot of today driving, it was still exciting because we got to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York (and the drive there was beautiful!). I loved visiting the museum because it was an incredible opportunity to learn more about the game and the amount of artifacts they’ve managed to collect was amazing. It was pretty disappointing that we only got to spend about three hours there because I felt like even a full day wouldn’t be enough to really absorb everything. I definitely felt rushed the whole time we were there but I do think that I learned a lot. One of my favorite exhibits was the one about women in baseball. I had no idea that in the past some women have played for professional teams so that was really cool to read about. There was a newspaper article about a female pitcher who struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig which I thought was fascinating. I also enjoyed the exhibit highlighting Latin players, mainly because everything was written in both English and Spanish so it gave me a chance to practice my Spanish. Other parts of the museum that I loved were the collection of baseball cards (I still want to know how much it was worth), the exhibit with a locker for each team showcasing significant jerseys, batting gloves, bats, etc., and the room that showed who holds each record.
The inductee room was another amazing experience. There were so many players who I had never heard of but when I did see a player that I had already heard of (like Babe Ruth) or a player that I had been introduced to through readings in these class (Cool Papa, for example) it was fun to read their plaque. Again, I wish I could’ve had more time to do some reading about their players. I felt pretty pressed for time at this point so it was kind of a quick walk through and I’d definitely like to go back some day to do some more serious reading and to hopefully see an inductee that I’ve seen play.
We left Cooperstown around 5:30. We actually had no hotel reservation this night – the plan was to just drive as far as we could to Detroit and then find a hotel on the way. That is how we ended up staying at the Gatehouse, the creepster motel in Corning, New York (I think). We all independently came to the conclusion that this was a place were murder scenes in horror movies take place. The clearly inebriated hotel manager/owner somehow got it into his head that we needed six rooms instead of the four we normally have, so we were all split up all over the property. I can’t account for the other rooms but Stephanie and I had the pleasure of sleeping in a room with cobwebs behind the bed, weird duck paintings, and a door that didn’t actually seem to lock. Thankfully, we all lived through the night and met up at the van again in the morning to finish up the drive to Detroit.
Oh, I should also add that despite the creepy experience in Corning, I DID have the BEST piece of pie to ever exist there. See picture below.
Lou Gehrig's locker
An example from the Latin exhibit
Tallest and shortest players ever
Seriously. Amazing.
Madison was excited about his, too. But only a little bit.