The Pilgrimage

Making a journey to Cooperstown, N.Y., is the ultimate journey for a baseball fan. It's arguably baseball's holiest of holy cities, where baseball legends live on forever in a quiet, lazy town. And because this place is so isolated -- off the beaten path, at least four hours of windy road away from any major city -- the trek there is significant.

This isn't a site to see along with others. There's no way to quickly drop by this place or hit it on a tour of other sites. It takes effort to make it there, and that makes the trip all the more meaningful.


There's not much else to see in Cooperstown. The place is still quite charming, though has the tourist trap kind of feel to it. Thankfully, the town keeps the baseball theme all together, and doesn't try to lure in sightseers with water parks or dog-and-pony shows.

The building itself is filled with countless wonders -- and only 10 percent of the museum's holdings is on display at any time.


There's lots of Cardinals stuff there, too, like Stan Musial's locker.


One exhibit chronicling baseball stadiums featured some items from a tour a few guys did eight years ago. They visited all 30 major league parks and a few other baseball sights in 37 days. If you think they're more awesome than us, they're not. Why? Because they used Comic Sans on their T-shirts, the worst font on the face of the planet.


One of the coolest sights of the day was the display featuring the game balls from every no-hitter thrown since the founding of the Hall of Fame.

That, of course, also includes the game thrown by Jose Jiminez, of all people.


The Hall also has a 'locker room' filled with historic mementos from every major league team.


This is what they all play for. Lots and lots of gems in one giant ring.


It's a sight like this, though, that makes you realize why it's called a 'hall' of fame. Here are enshrined the greatest players to ever take the field. It feels like a sanctuary, a peaceful place to honor the legends of the game -- until a loud tour group of screaming elementary kids comes through and disturbs it all.


It's a special place, where the game's greats come together, their careers summed up in a few sentences.


The atrium at the end of the hall features the plaques of the hall's first class and the classes from the current decade, as well as flags representing the birth countries of the hall's inductees.


Here's me with Ozzie Smith, The Wizard of St. Louis. Without a doubt, he was my favorite player growing up. I went away for a week at summer camp in June 1996, and came back to the real world to discover that the Oz had announced his retirement. I thought the world was coming to an end.


There's not really a journalism hall of fame anywhere, but there is a wing of this Hall devoted to the writers and broadcasters. Don't know if I'll ever make it on this wall, but I can stand with the best for this moment, at least.


The Hall stands in Cooperstown because Abner Doubleday allegedly invented the game here. This stadium stands outside the Hall and bears his name.


We missed the Hall of Fame Game (an exhibition game played during induction weekend) by 10 days, but seeing a field cut out of the past was something special.


I'm pretty sure we had bigger dugouts than this in Little League.


For anyone who appreciates baseball's history, Cooperstown is a must-see place. The amount of history and detail feature in the hall is incredible, and it's a place that will undoubtedly give you goosebumps.