Friday, July 27. We left NYC (great joy on my part) and headed to Cooperstown. The countryside of NY is so much like Pennsylvania where I grew up that it was like a "little bit of home." Beautiful rolling hills, farms, trees, flowers, quaint little towns. Along the way we watched on the bus the heart-warming baseball movie, The Rookie.
We arrived in Cooperstown just after noon. It is a gorgeous small town with a lively Main Street that was all set for Hall of Fame Induction weekend. Yep, we hit Cooperstown at the perfect time. The HOF is way more awesome than I could have ever imagined. Three floors of exhibits about how baseball started, well over 100 years of history, every record imaginable, displays for each team, baseball artworks, and then a great hall and rotunda with all the individual Hall of Fame plaques. I spent over four hours roaming and could have easily spent a couple more. The "icing on the cake" was a movie about baseball with many of the greats of my lifetime. It epitomizes why I love baseball so much, and I walked out of it in tears, as did many others. I'm thinking that the HOF was the pinnacle of the tour.
I wandered around town and had a pizza lunch, shopped, and later sat and enjoyed an ice cream and talked with one of the street vendors. There are loads of vendors on the streets for Induction weekend. To my great delight, I found a Life-Is-Good store and could not pass up a Cooperstown-baseball Life is Good shirt--it's totally me. There was a huge lazing Golden Retriever in the store, making me homesick for Dusty, but alas, the dog was not for sale. Several of my fellow tour buds saw former players around town--Darryl Strawberry, Pete Rose, Dale Murphy--but I missed them.
We left Cooperstown around 6pm, and drove to our overnight stop in Albany. About a third of our group of 52 went out to a sports bar for supper. It has really been a fun group and we had a lot of laughs, especially with Bobby, our host from Australia. Yep, he's that big of a fan, to travel halfway around the world to do these tours.
Another day in paradise!!!
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