On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Captain C
After a fairly long drive to Cooperstown, Dame N and I decided to wait a day to check out the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum and spend a relaxing day exploring the non Hall of Fame parts of Cooperstown. Naturally, this included a bookstore and a library (and also a memorabilia shop or two). This set of photos is the first half of the pics from Thursday and other miscellaneous non Hall of Fame shots. Next up are the Hall of Fame photos, which will take a number of sets, and then at the end will be the second half of Cooperstown &c. which will include my final book haul for the trip.
While the story of Abner Doubleday being the sole creator of the Great Game of Baseball in 1839 has been proven to be a complete myth, this myth is nonetheless permanently associated with baseball (and was the reason for the opening of the Hall specifically in the year 1939, the ostensible centenary of the game’s very existence). Thus, the field near the museum is named for Doubleday (who was a reasonably competent general in the Civil War, IIRC), and every year the Hall of Fame game is played here as part of the Hall of Fame Induction Weekend ceremonies.
It is also where the now-times games played by the AAGPBL vets were played in the movie A League of Their Own.
In front of the park is the statue of the Sandlot Kid, which has been there since around 1964.
A Honus Wagner baseball card in the window of a memorabilia shop. I hope it’s a replica, as the last real one to sell went for around 7 million bucks. Honus Wagner cards are particularly rare because the very straight-laced Wagner did not like the idea of his image being used to help sell tobacco (which the cards came with) and thus demanded they stop. Only a few got into the wild.
Outside the museum there’s an old-school standing and scoreboard, updated daily. Note that this was before the Mets’ disaster May and subsequent recovery.
Cooperstown is on the shore of Otsego Lake, the source of the Susquehanna River, where we found this lighthouse.
Yes, we went to the library. Did you expect otherwise? No, you did not.
They had some nice displays in the library. Also a fireplace. I’m a little jealous of the fireplace.
Looking down Main Street.
The people from the Lyrical Ballad mentioned this used bookstore in Cooperstown, so we had to check it out. It was very cool (though not as TARDIS-like as the Lyrical Ballad). Of course I got a book there. Maybe two. Definitely the one by Keith Hernandez that I came home with.
Coming up next: a <BLEEP>load of pictures from the Baseball Hall of Fame.
p.a.
Thank you, nice shots. Been decades since my Cooperstown/HoF visit. The brick shops remind me of small town America as it is in the public’s imagination. Maybe with limestone government buildings as well.
I wonder what the town would be like without the HoF draw? Might be much more “on hard times” as a lot of small towns are as the national economy passed them by. 2023 population 2,034! Might not be there at all without the Hall.
Trivia Man
Never been, I’d hoped to go while i lived in NJ but never made the time.
Im always leery of a fireplace in a library. Sparks! Smoke! People horsing around or not paying attention!
gkoutnik
Cooperstown is so much more than baseball! It’s the county seat, and has been since William Cooper did a possibly corrupt deal in a tavern north of town over 200 years ago. He was a larger-than-life character worth reading more about; Alan Taylor’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “William Cooper’s Town” is a fascinating read about one of America’s first entrepreneurs. Down the lake from Cooperstown is Hyde Hall, a 50-room, 22,000 sq.ft. limestone mansion built by a wealthy Englishman who inherited land in NYS from his great grandfather, Lieutenant Governor of the colony of NY in the 18th century. Lovingly and lavishly restored; tours daily, and the Visitor’s Center has a great bookstore. On the west side of the lake is the Farmer’s Museum, a Sturbridge-like village of historic buildings, with costumed interpreters, set in 1840; a world-class art museum (Fenimore Art Museum) and opera (Glimmerglass Festival). And many excellent craft breweries, including Ommegang. And that used book store – Willis Monie Books – is really a treasure.
Just Some Flyover
I finally made it to Cooperstown about a year ago. I spent approximately 16 hours in the baseball museum. (I’d been wanting to go since I was a kid. I wanted to see EVERY exhibit and read EVERY plaque!) Beautiful town to walk around, good places to eat. Yes, the Fenimore Art Museum is worth seeing. Otsego Hotel I could imagine feeling like The Shining if I was the only one there. (I didn’t stay there but had a very nice meal in the restaurant.) I definitely want to visit again sometime.
Oh, and yes. The Honus Wagner pictured is INDEED a very washed out reprint! There IS a real one in the museum among other cards and items that would be considered the Matisses/Monets/Picassos/Van Goghs of baseball memorabilia.
mvr
Thanks especially for the used bookstore pic. If I remember it the next time I’m in the vicinity it may get me to go there.
Librarian
@gkoutnik: William Cooper was also the father of James Fenimore Cooper, and Glimmerglass is his name for Lake Otsego in his novels.
Yutsano
My family is very much a baseball family, so we really should do a pilgrimage to Cooperstown some day.