OK, so last Fall I corresponded with the Curator at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum regarding their amateur baseball exhibit. My ball team had just won our league’s championship and I was trying to get us “inducted” into the Hall, if just for a day. Well, the Curator, a Mr. John Odell, is a true gentleman, and he went above and beyond to make sure that our team was, in fact, temporarily represented in the exhibit and sent along a beautiful letter of congratulations on behalf of the Hall of Fame. So you can see what I’m talking about, I have attached an image of my team photo, hat, league baseball, and championship medal, along with the HoF letter that he displayed in the museum for us back in February.
- The materials I sent to the Hall of Fame for inclusion in an exhibit
- The photo of our items on display and the letter of congratulations from the Hall that the Curator sent back to me
As my dialogue with Mr. Odell expanded, the topic of my collection came up, as did discussion about our new book. He was interested in the project and learning more about the family collection, and, naturally, we were more than happy to indulge him. This led him to request an example of our book for the Hall of Fame’s Library. We sent a copy up to Cooperstown and their Library Accessions Committee accepted it, adding it to their permanent holdings. Early on in this whole process, John very graciously extended an invitation to us to meet with him at the Hall whenever we made our next trip up there. Well, we made our annual pilgrimage up there this past week and I’m still trying to process the experience…in my opinion, the pinnacle for a collector of vintage baseball memorabilia.
My father and I arrived at the Hall of Fame offices at 1:30pm on Thursday for our long awaited, behind-the-scenes tour with the Museum Curator. At long last I was finally able to meet with John Odell who had been so helpful and friendly over the past several months…this visit would not disappoint one iota as he is one of the most personable, knowledgeable, and professional individuals I’ve had the pleasure of meeting thru this great hobby of ours.
After receiving us right outside the office of the President of the Hall of Fame, he began our tour in the Hall’s archives. There he shared with us the way in which the museum has accumulated its holdings since 1939 and brought out a number of items to show us. These items included the following…
The By Laws of the 1857 Harlem BBC…1913 Ty Cobb sheet music…one of the $25,000 promissory notes for the transaction of Babe Ruth to the Yankees…the 1939 letter from the Mayo Clinic regarding Lou Gehrig’s medical condition…and Russ Hodges’ scorecard from the 1951 “Shot Heard Round the World” game.
It was absolutely amazing to hold these items in our hands and hear about the ways in which they made their way into the archives. As truly special as this first stop was, it was just the beginning.
We moved onto the photo archives where we saw original images of all the Hall of Famers as well as photographs of some of the most significant people, places, and events in baseball history. Our next treat was the library holdings which, low and behold, included our very own book…Dugout Treasures; Memorabilia and Memories. There we spoke about all of the ways to request and do research at the Hall, and chatted more specifically about the publications specific to vintage baseball equipment.
This discussion prepped us for the final destination of the tour…the one we’d been thinking about, talking about, and dreaming about for weeks…the collections vault.
After signing in, John led us into the vault which contained all the non paper related items in the Hall…yea…the gloves, bats, balls, uniforms, trophy’s, paintings, flags, pennants, etc., etc., etc. It was staggering to say the least…imagine a room the size of a high school gym loaded floor to ceiling with the most precious items from baseball’s past!
- View of the collections room as we first saw it
- My Dad and John Odell beginning to talk about the collection
More of the story to follow....
