Cooperstown, New York
Posted: 10/24/07

It was January 2005 when I watched a couple of TV pundits discuss one of the great moral issues of the decade. No, they weren’t talking about the Iraq war. They were heatedly arguing about whether Pete Rose, who had just come out with a book detailing how he lied about betting on baseball, should be allowed to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame and to work as a manager.

Well, one pundit hit the nail on the head. “The Baseball Hall of Fame is a tourist attraction in New York State,” he said. “ It is not run by the official institution of the baseball leagues, but by a private company. Therefore, Pete Rose deserves to be nominated because of his talent and record. On the other hand, he should not be allowed to work in baseball because he broke the rules.”

It struck me like a bolt of lightning! Of course the National Baseball Hall of Fame was a tourist attraction! It was not, after all, Valhalla, where mythic heroes ascend to eternal fame, but a museum filled with displays and memorabilia of the heroes of a national sport. It stands in Cooperstown for no other reason than that Abner Doubleday, the purported inventor of baseball, supposedly laid down the rules while going to school there. And it has helped to turn Cooperstown into a perfect tourist destination.

Cooperstown is a lovely central New York State village set on a lake surrounded by the leafy foothills of the Catskills, about 70 miles east of Albany. It retains the look of an old-fashioned summer resort, with old-style hotels and Bed &Breakfast homes complete with rocking chairs on the porch. In fact, the village does not allow any franchised restaurants or hotels in town. It offers several attractions aside from baseball and makes for a good long weekend trip or a stop on the way to Canada or Lake George.

The town was named for the William Cooper, who founded it in 1786 on the southern tip of Lake Otsego. But it is his son, James Fenimore Cooper, America’s first celebrity novelist, who is most associated with the town. I don’t know how many people actually read Cooper anymore--his prose is ponderous and his attitude toward Native Americans is pretty low on the Richter scale of political correctness. However, his Leatherstocking Tales featured the character, Natty Bumppo,” the Deerslayer”, who became the forerunner of the Western pioneer hero. And “The Last of the Mohicans” set the literary style for good Indians and bad Indians for at least 100 years.

The forested mountains of Otsego County are prominent in Cooper’s novels, as are the eastern tribes. The names of the towns and rivers in the area—the Mohawk, Oneonta, Algonquin, and Seneca—bring back memories of books read long ago. One can meander around the countryside and note the pristine beauty of the landscape, as it must have been when the first pioneers approached it. An excursion boat called the Glimmer Glass Queen chugs around the lake several times a day.

But it is the National Baseball Hall of Fame that dominates the town. The huge stone building hosts a collection of uniforms, bats, catcher’s mitts, trophies and rings from the early days to the present. There are medallions of all the inductees, and special displays on the old heroes such as Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. There are also sections devoted to the fashioning of the major leagues, and such offshoots as the traveling Negro League and the Woman’s League that developed in the 1940s. And of course there are walls full of baseball statistics of the sort that 12-year-olds love to memorize.

During the summer there are exhibition games by little leagues from all over the country at a special baseball field and visitors are welcome to stop and watch.

But non-baseball fans can also find interests in the Cooperstown area. The Farmers Museum Village, set in the era of 1845 (about the time J.F. Cooper was writing his books) is first rate. It includes a barn full of informative displays, a schoolhouse, a tavern, and plenty of costumed docents to play the part of villagers. The working farm is stocked with heritage animals (these are farmyard cows and chickens that are bred backward to create an older strain) while craftsmen such as blacksmiths and printers ply their trades in nearby houses.

The Fenimore Art Museum is another attraction run by the Historical Society. Here, in a stately house, there is a collection of Hudson River School paintings, prints and photographs along with memorabilia about the hometown author. The museum also offers a full collection of folk art, including quilts, weathervanes, Indian pottery and wooden trade signs.

About eight miles from the center of town, you’ll find the Glimmer Glass Opera House, which began as a local community theater and has now blossomed into a nationally known music theater. It is set inside a modern, acoustically sound building and offers a series of summer performances. Tickets can be bought beforehand at their website ( www.glimmerglassopera.org) if you plan to visit the area.

For more information on the town check out: www.visitcooperstown.com. For the Hall of Fame, telephone 888-425-5633 or go to www.baseballhalloffame.com.

Copyright 2006, Barbara Hudgins