Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 17
I SPENT THE night in Cobleskill, New York, on the northern fringes of the Catskills, and
in the morning drove to Cooperstown, a small resort on Lake Otsego. Cooperstown was the
homeofJamesFenimoreCooper,fromwhosefamilythetowntakesitsname.Itwasahand-
some town, as handsome as any I had seen in New England, and more replete with autumn
color,withamainstreetofsquare-toppedbrickbuildings,oldbanks,amovietheater,family
stores.TheCooperstownDiner,whereIwentforbreakfast,wasbusy,friendlyandcheap-all
that a diner should be. Afterwards I went for a stroll around the residential streets, shuffling
hands-in-pocketsthroughthedryleaves,anddowntothelakeside.Everyhouseintownwas
old and pretty; many of the larger ones had been converted into inns and expensive B&Bs.
Themorningsunlightfilteredthroughthetreesandthrewdappledshadowsacrossthelawns
and sidewalks. This was as nice a little town as I had seen on the trip; it was almost Amal-
gam.
Theonlyshortcoming withCooperstownisthatitisfulloftourists,drawntothetownbyits
most famous institution, the Baseball Hall of Fame, which stands by a shady park at the far
end of Main Street. I went there now, paid $8.50 admission and walked into its cathedral-
like calm. For those of us who are baseball fans and agnostics, the Hall of Fame is as close
to a religious experience as we may ever get. I walked serenely through its quiet and softly
lit halls, looking at the sacred vestments and venerated relics from America's national pas-
time.Here,beautifullypreservedinaglasscase,was“theshirtwornbyWarrenSpahnwhen
registeringwinNo.305,whichtiedhimwithEddiePlankformostbyaleft-hander.”Across
the aisle was “the glove used by Sal Maglie in September 25, 1958, no-hitter vs. Phillies.”
At each case people gazed reverently or spoke in whispers.
One room contained a gallery of paintings commemorating great moments in baseball his-
tory, including one depicting the first professional night game under artificial lighting,
played in Des Moines, Iowa, on May 2, 1930. This was exciting news to me. I had no idea
thatDesMoineshadplayedapivotalroleinthehistoryofbothbaseballandluminescence.I
looked closely to see if the artist had depicted my father in the press box, but then I realized
that my father was only fifteen years old in 1930 and still in Winfield. This seemed kind of
a pity.
In an upstairs room I suppressed a whoop of joy at the discovery of whole cases full of
the baseball cards that my brother and I had so scrupulously collected and cataloged, and
which my parents, in an early flirtation with senility, had taken to the dump during an
attic spring cleaning in 1981. We had the complete set for 1959 in mint condition; it is
