Baseball's Hall

If you read my last post, you know I warned you about photos from my vacation. If you didn't read my previous post, shame on you.

Here is the primary entrance to one of my favorite places on Earth, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Much has changed at the Hall since my first visit almost thirty years ago. However, it remains a special place for many of the same reasons it captured my imagination in the Seventies.

It is, perhaps, the only place on Earth where the game's stature hasn't been diminished by time. The labor discord, the big money deals and all of the game's ills are on display, but they are pushed aside under the weight of over one hundred years of history. The game is, as it once was, the center of the sports world.

At the Hall, Babe Ruth is still larger than life. Jackie Robinson is still stealing home. Willie, Mickey and The Duke still roam centerfield in NYC. The Dead Ball Era lives on.

Ty Cobb is as surly and proficient as ever. Roberto Clemente is making basket catches. Bud is still trying to explain to Lou that "Who is on first".

In the Cooperstown shrine the echoes of Bobby Thompson's homer and Lou Gehrig's farewell speech can still be heard. Ebbets Field is alive and well.

Fans huddle around radios and televisions following every play of every game. Ernie Harwell, Curt Gowdy and Harry Caray are still behind the mike. Boxscores remain mandatory reading.

Kids in the country are playing the game in an open field, while kids in the city are playing stickball in a crowded street.

The Hall of Fame is a living, breathing timeline of the game. It provides both a history of baseball and of our nation. It exposes it's own shortcomings, but overwhelmes them in a celebration of the game.

I could go on for quite a while in this Bart Giamatti-esque rambling about the Hall. I won't as a courtesy to you, but I could.

While I don't approach the place with quite the same awe as a young boy, I do cherish the Hall because it not only maintains the essence of what baseball should be, but still, on occasion, gives me the same feeling about the game as I had so long ago. I consider that to be worthy of a sappy paragraph or two.

Note: I promise future posts concerning my Hall of Fame vacation will not be as sentimental.