As most know, I am doing a decent amount of spoiling myself since I have milestone birthday this year. Maybe I am trying to forget that actually.  I have always wanted to go to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.  Pretty much the middle of nowhere and I could never figure a way to link it on to another trip.  Until now.  I missed the Ben Harper in Asheville this year because of my whole Easter in Europe trip.  As soon as I realized I was missing him, I scoured their schedule and to my surprise they were playing a show in Cooperstown.  This trip became a no brainer.

 

Part 1 - The Hall of Fame. 

Cooperstown itself would most likely dry up if it wasn't for baseball.  I probably have never been to a city that was so geared to one thing.  90% of the shops along Main St was selling baseball souvenirs and merchandise.  After flying into Albany, I took the short drive over the baseball mecca.  Saturday was all about dodging rain, but that lends to a big kid spending a half of a day in the Hall of Fame.

 

 

Maybe the next picture is why I have posted in so many years now.  The last post I had on the other blog focused on the Cardinals winning the 2011 World Series in extremely dramatic fashion with other an worldly Game 6 comeback and then closing the Rangers out in the 7th game. Well the bat below is the one David Freese used for all his heroics. 

 

Way too much to talk about a describe, but it was pretty amazing walking through the products and tools of so many historical baseball moments.  The first video I heard when I walked in was Jack Buck's 1985 NLCS infamous homerun call of Ozzie Smith walk-off Game 5 against the Dodgers - "Go crazy folks, go crazy".  My favorite part of the museum was the fact that you could see artifacts from a 100 years ago, others that occurred during varied circumstances, or things that happened within the last month.  I offered to help them clean out their overflow stuff, but no one listened.