Check It Off The Life List

About a week ago my friend Joe Johnston floated the idea of visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown New York. This is one of those things that I had always wanted to do. Considering that the Angels had a huge Playoff Series going on with the Red Sox, I felt it was my duty to take the Rally Monkey and pay homage to baseball history. On Friday Night I went out to dinner with my Aunt and Uncle, came home, watched the Angels win game two, and got ready to leave early the next morning.

 

Cooperstown is an idyllic little village. It was a beautiful fall day. A little cold in fact. We walked down the main street and it was lined with restaurants and memorabilia stores and then up to the Baseball Hall of Fame. There are members of the Hall of Fame who played for the Angels including Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson, Nolan Ryan, Frank Robinson, and Eddie Murray. None of them have gone into the Hall as Angels though. I knew it would probably be light on Angels displays. I think I found every bit of Angels memorabilia there was.

 

I know it's completely ridiculous but I believe in the power of the rally monkey. That little simian comes out and people just go crazy. I brought him a long with me to the museum, and got quite few comments and laughs because of it.

 

Obviously the teams with more history were the best represented. Not a huge surprise that the Yankees were the best represented. I enjoyed the display about Babe Ruth. It makes sense that if your team has 27 championships they are likely to have pretty good representation. I enjoyed seeing the old equipment. It was so primitive. The rally monkey was there because of the crucial role he played in the 2002 Play Offs.

There were many notable parts of the collection. One of the most infamous parts was the ball Barry Bonds hit to break the all time home run record. It was marked with an asterisk.

I just looked at the breakdown by teams. There are 10 Dodgers, 0 Angels, 14 Yankees, and 1 Brewer. So at least my friends Joe, Dan, and Billy all had representation in the hall, even if I didn't. I look forward to the day when Vlad goes in as an Angel.

One of my favorite parts of the museum was the gallery. This is probably what you think of when you hear Hall of Fame. It is very cool to see all of the great accomplishments these players had. Although I hate everything about the Red Sox, you can not argue with how awesome Ted Williams is. Not only is he the last hitter to hit over .400 for a season, he also took time off during his career to be a fighter pilot in the Korean war.

The Hall of Fame was great. I bought a retro Angels hat, and I'm pretty sure it is good luck. I was thrilled to check off something from my life list, now I just need to get married, and buy a Porsche.

I'll write another post about the rest of our trip tomorrow. It involves , Sonic, Intercourse, Amish, and Miley Cyrus among other things.