Dave's Favorite Places (Part I)

National Pastime
81 Main Street
Cooperstown, NY 13326

Our first visit to Cooperstown was during our 2004 Baseball Road Trip. Obviously, visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame was an incredible experience, but I'll save that for a future post. Main Street Cooperstown is heaven for any baseball fan, much like a simple ball diamond in the cornfields of Dyersville, Iowa. There's just something so welcoming and familiar that you not only feel like you've visited on a prior occasion, but that this place is a part of you. It feels strangely like home. Cooperstown is the site to Gen. Doubleday's "invention" and home of the Hall of Fame, but also storefront after storefront of baseball memorabilia. My favorite such store is National Pastime.
I consider it the Hall of Fame "annex" minus an admission fee. There are thousands of items on display for sale including Cooperstown souvenirs, old baseball mitts and pennants from eras past. Many museum quality pieces adorn the display cases and walls from floor to ceiling and those old things moms of the 50s put out at the curb once Little Johnny tired of them. The smells lingering in the air - 50 year-old leather, 75 year-old wool and the 100 year-old hardwoods - conjure images of days gone by at Ebbets Field, Sportsman's Park and the Polo Grounds - places long demolished before I left the womb. There's something surreal about being within inches of so much history, so much of America's pastime.

The first time I saw it, I knew it had to be mine, even though the price seemed steep. "When will I ever be here again?" I rationalized. "I don't know anyone else who has one," I thought. The home jersey of the fictional 1939 New York Knights that Robert Redford wore in The Natural - hand sewn to the exact specifications as though Roy Hobbs placed the order himself. I stood there for a half hour talking myself in and out of this purchase and finally decided against it. I decided to settle. I chose the New York Knights cap instead. It was only $25 bucks and I was appeased, but only for a short time.

Before we even got back to our hotel, I was regretting my decision, my failure to act, and for the next 364 days I coveted those few yards of pinstriped wool and thread. Julia tried to convince me to just buy it online, but I refused. "If I'm going to get it, it's going to be in Cooperstown, NY at 81 Main Street," I would say. It was just one of a set of excuses I assembled to plan a return trip someday. That's the best part of being the Baseball Road Trip planner - I am the decider, the navigator. Needless to say, Cooperstown appeared on our destination list for the summer of 2005.

We parked on the lot at Doubleday Field, just a block or so away, and I walked even more swiftly than my usual brisk pace to site of my yearlong regret. As Julia caught up to me, familiar scents greeted me several yards from the open door and there it was, hanging just where I had abandoned it. With a quick swipe of a card and a hastily scribbled signature, it was mine. No more regrets.