Baseball Hall of Fame Day Trip To Cooperstown

On a recent road trip around New York we decided to take a day trip over to Cooperstown to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame.

We had spent the weekend in Lake Placid for a wedding and had driven through Saratoga Springs, so Cooperstown was a natural next destination.

Neither of us are particularly huge baseball fans, but we do go to LA Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds games and some minor league baseball as well.

So we thought it would just be an interesting place to visit just because it is very iconic!

Baseball Hall of Fame

We accidentally visited on the weekend of the Hall of Fame induction ceremony because that’s just how the dates of our trip fell.

We were there the day before and people were already set up with chairs lined up and down the street.

The museum was pretty busy, but especially because of all of the 12-year-old boy baseball teams that were visiting.

I don’t know if they’re mostly only there in the summer or just because of the induction ceremony, so I’m not sure if it’s always like that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is.

Museum Exhibits

I pulled together some photos that were just some interesting highlights for me during our visit.

One of them was an exhibit that had an American Girl doll dressed in a Cincinnati Reds jersey.

There was also a Barbie in a Dodgers jacket and then also a teddy bear.

I thought those were cute and that it was funny that they had prominently featured the Reds and the Dodgers since those are the teams that we follow. 

Another exhibit was dedicated to Japan and baseball.

They had a Winnie the Pooh themed Japanese baseball video game that I thought was really cute.

One of the bigger focal points of the museum is a locker room with a locker built out for every single team.

Each one has various memorabilia of jerseys, hats, or anything specific to that team.

This is what the Cincinnati Reds locker looked like.

There was also an interesting display about an event that I had never heard about before.

It was during the bicentennial and during a game some people stormed the field and tried to set an American flag on fire.

A baseball player stopped them and was able to recover the flag and this is the flag that is on display.

There’s also a small display of things that are “new to the museum”.

I thought it was nice that they feature them prominently before they just get buried in the thousands of displays in the museum.

The main purpose of this museum is that it is also the Hall of Fame, so when you get to the end, you get to the actual Hall of Fame.

Since we were visiting on the Hall of Fame ceremony weekend, we could see the 3 plaques that were blank that the new inductees were going to be added to.

They had signed the back of it, which is what you can see on the image below, and then their plaque with their image and description goes over it after the ceremony.

Another cute exhibit was “Baseball at the Movies”.

It looks like an old-timey movie theater entrance and when you go in and walk around, it has movie posters and memorabilia from very noteworthy baseball movies like The Sandlot and Field of Dreams.

I also thought the Sandlot Kids Clubhouse was a really cool feature that they added.

It’s mainly for kids ages 3-10 and it is just a very well put together playhouse to keep them entertained.

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More Things To Do In Cooperstown

When we had planned our trip here, we weren’t really sure what to expect of the area.

I had heard of Cooperstown as being known as being the place for the Hall of Fame, but I didn’t know that the Hall of Fame was right in the center of a historic downtown on a lake .

I thought it would just be randomly placed like any other museum.

So when you go, you want to plan some time to explore Cooperstown and the surrounding area.

Make a whole day of it or at least a half-day.

Cooperstown also seemed to have quite a few Italian restaurants.

We did not stay long enough to eat anywhere substantial because we had come in from Saratoga Springs where we had a bigger lunch at a historic colonial tavern and then we were still driving on to Syracuse later that night, so that just didn’t work out for us, but there was a lot that looked really good.

All up and down the historic downtown main street there are a lot of baseball memorabilia, collectible, and souvenir shops.

While we were there there were a lot of pop-up signings and trading opportunities.

Historic Homes

Also make some time to drive around the neighborhood a little bit.

There are a lot of historic homes that are colonial and southern style.

Some of them actually opened up their lawns for parking since the streets were closed off to parking for the ceremony.

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Conclusion: Baseball Hall of Fame Day Trip To Cooperstown

So overall, if you want to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame, make sure to take a whole day to enjoy the other things that are in Cooperstown.

The Baseball Hall of Fame itself can easily take 2-3 hours to explore because there’s so many levels and so many exhibits.

There’s a lot of interactive things to do as well. 

If you want to make a larger trip out of it, you could easily pair a visit to Cooperstown with going to Saratoga Springs or even Lake Placid for a longer weekend getaway.

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