In the February 27, 1939 issue of Time Magazine this quote can be found, “…there is no proof that Cooperstown, N.Y. was the birthplace of baseball, nor that Abner Doubleday, its accredited founder, ever played the game.” The quote is attributed to Historian Frank G. Menke.
But Cooperstown is the birth of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Hometown philanthropist Stephen Carlton Clark founded the Hall and paid for its construction, which opened in 1939. Clark’s grandfather, Edward Clark, was partners with Isaac Singer of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Stephen Clark’s idea for the Hall was done in part to preserve the national pastime but also to bring tourists to the city.
Historians may have refuted the Doubleday myth now but in 1907 the Spalding Commission dubbed the Civil War officer baseball’s founder and led the way for the Hall to be built in Cooperstown. Time Magazine wrote, “The world will little note nor long remember what Doubleday did at Gettysburg, but it can never forget what he did at Cooperstown.”
Three years before a building was established, the first class to be inducted was in 1936 immortalizing Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth, and Honus Wagner.
The Baseball Hall of Fame not only honors greatness but is also is its keeper. Artifacts are donated to the museum at nearly 400 items a year. Each glove, ball and cap, and plaque not only signify an important moment but are just a tiny piece to the whole story of baseball.
The campus has grown over the years. The A. Barlett Giamatti Research Center is one part. The Library contains upward of three million documents including President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s letter to Commissioner Landis in 1942, requesting Landis to keep baseball going during WWII.
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