Heaven on Earth

Last year on our Gilmore Girls vacation, we also spent a day in Cooperstown, New York. The place baseball players are enshrined. The home of the Hall of Fame, where 1 percent of all baseball players make it. Let me repeat that, one percent of ALL baseball players get inducted to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Red spent over 70 years
in a Cardinals uniform.

I have grown up my entire life hearing about Cooperstown. The current, and biggest debate, involving the St. Louis Cardinals is whether Yadier Molina will be inducted. If you ask me, well, duh! My completely unbiased (that's not sarcasm) opinion is how could he not be? I could write an entire blog on that topic though.

Back to Cooperstown itself. In my head, I had envisioned Cooperstown as a big city, at the very least, an average sized city. Boy were we surprised to find a very small town, tucked into curvy, windy roads back through the woods of New York. It's population is somewhere around 1,800. No, I didn't place the comma wrong and forget a zero! The population of Cooperstown is 1,800. You learn something new everyday, or at least we did!

I won't bore people with every detail of our tour or my numerous pictures. I'll leave with my top 3 take aways.

We found our way to be enshrined at
Cooperstown. As the best fans in baseball.

1. Purely by stroke of luck, we were there the day before the 2018 induction. Unfortunately, we didn't run into any famous past players, but we did get to see Cooperstown being set up for the big ceremony. We also got to see the placements on the wall where the new plaques would hang. That sounds boring, however, we learned that living players sign behind their plaques. So we got to see their signatures, which I figure is something most people don't get to see.

2. Cooperstown is everything baseball. The stores down the brick road are nearly all baseball related. The restaurants are baseball themed. There are ball parks tucked back behind the museum where the first baseball games took place.

Stanislaus.
*All the feels*

3. If I were to imagine what heaven is like, it would be pretty close to Cooperstown. There are 3 floors to the museum. We walked around every floor and spent the entire day reading about America's favorite pastime. We could have spent at least another day reading, if not longer. (If you want to get me to read, take me to a museum!) Contrary to what people might think, I wasn't just stopping to read about St. Louis Cardinals players. I enjoy all baseball history. From the beginning days, first baseballs and gloves, Babe Ruth, Cy Young, Rogers Hornsby, Stan "the Man" Musial, Ted Williams, the baseball strike of the '90's, home run battles, World Series biggest moments, and all of the other moments and players in between, they are all showcased in the Cooperstown Hall of Fame museum. My heart flutters thinking about it.

If you love baseball, go to Cooperstown. It is worth the drive through the woods. Just plan on spending the entire day there, better yet, you might want to plan a couple days in baseball heaven.