National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

History

The Hall of Fame was dedicated on June 12, 1939 by Lee Ferrick Andrews, grandson of Edward Clark, who was a founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Stephen C. Clark was owner of a local hotel and sought to bring tourists to Cooperstown, which had been suffering economically when the Great Depression significantly reduced the local tourist trade and Prohibition devastated the local hops industry. His granddaughter, Jane Forbes Clark, is the current Chairman of the Board of Directors. The erroneous claim that U.S. Civil War hero Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, a claim made by former National League president Abraham G. Mills and his 1905 Mills Commission, was instrumental in the early marketing of the Hall.

An $8 million library and research facility opened in 1994. Dale Petroskey became the organization's president in 1999.

In 2002, Baseball As America was launched, a traveling exhibit that toured ten American museums over six years. The Hall of Fame has also sponsored educational programming on the Internet to bring the Hall of Fame to schoolchildren who might not visit. The Hall and Museum completed a series of renovations in spring 2005. The Hall of Fame also presents an annual exhibit at FanFest at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

Jeff Idelson replaced Petroskey as president on April 16, 2008. He had been acting as president since March 25, 2008, when his predecessor was forced to resign for "fail[ing] to exercise proper fiduciary responsibility" while making "judgments that were not in the best interest of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum."

The museum

According to the Hall of Fame, approximately 350,000 visitors enter the museum each year, and the running total has surpassed 14 million. These visitors see only a fraction of its 35,000 artifacts, 2.6 million library items (such as newspaper clippings and photos) and 130,000 baseball cards.

First floor

Baseball at the Movies houses baseball movie memorabilia while a screen shows footage from those movies.
The Bullpen Theater is the site of daily programming at the museum (trivia games, book discussions, etc.) and is decorated with pictures of famous relief pitchers.
The Halper Gallery contains rotating exhibits.
Induction Row contains artifacts pertinent to the most recent inductees and photos of past Hall of Fame Weekends.
The Perez-Steele Art Gallery features art of all media related to baseball.
The Plaque Gallery, the most recognizable site at the museum, contains induction plaques of all members.
The Sandlot Kids Clubhouse has various interactive displays for young children.
Scribes and Mikemen honors J. G. Taylor Spink Award and Ford C. Frick Award winners with a photo display and has artifacts related to baseball writing and broadcasting. Floor-to-ceiling windows at the Scribes and Mikemen exhibit face an outdoor courtyard with statues of Johnny Podres and Roy Campanella (representing the Brooklyn Dodgers 1955 championship team), and an unnamed AAGPBL player. A Satchel Paige statue was unveiled and dedicated during 2006 Induction Weekend.

Second floor

The Grandstand Theater features a 12 minute multimedia film. The 200 seat theater, complete with replica stadium seats, is decorated to resemble old Comiskey Park.
The Game is the major feature of the second floor. It is where the most artifacts are displayed. The Game is set up in a timeline format, starting with baseball's beginnings and culminating with the game we know today. There are several offshoots of this meandering timeline:

The Babe Ruth Room
Diamond Dreams (women in baseball)
Viva Baseball! (celebrates baseball in the Carribean Basin)
Pride and Passion (Negro Leagues exhibit)
Taking The Field (19th century baseball)

The Today's Game exhibit is built like a baseball clubhouse, with 30 glass-enclosed locker stalls, one for each Major League franchise. In each stall there is a jersey and other items from the designated big league team, along with a brief team history. A center display case holds objects donated to the Hall of Fame from the past year or two. Fans can also look into a room designed to look like a manager's office. Outside is a display case with rotating artifacts. Currently the space is devoted to the World Baseball Classic.

Third floor

Autumn Glory is devoted to post-season baseball and has, among other artifacts, replicas of World Series rings. Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream An Education Gallery hosts school groups and, in the summer, presentations about artifacts from the museum's collection. In the gallery foyer is a TV that continually plays baseball bloopers and the popular Abbott and Costello routine "Who's on First?" and a display case with rotating exhibits. The Records Room has charts showing active and all-time leaders in various baseball statistical categories. The statistics charts are posted on the walls, leaving the center space for other purposes: BBWAA awards: Replicas of various awards distributed by the BBWAA at the end of each season, along with a list of past winners. A case dedicated to Ichiro Suzuki setting the major league record for base hits in a single season, with 262 in 2004. A case full of World Series Rings from prior years from the 1900s to present. An inductee database touch-screen computer with statistics for every inductee.
Programs from every World Series. Sacred Ground is the newest museum section, opened after the 2003–05 renovation. It is devoted entirely to ballparks and everything about them, especially the fan experience and the business of a ballpark. The centerpiece is a computer tour of Boston's old South End Grounds, Comiskey Park, and Ebbets Field.