Home Base: The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

America is a land of great museums and every museum has spellbinding stories to tell the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown New York home base next on great museums this program is funded by the Yaqui foundation providing opportunities in education health care human services amateur athletics conservation and the arts major funding for great museums is provided by the eureka foundation dedicated to the educational power of television and new media exercise your curiosity explore America's great museums it's a whole experience when people come to Cooperstown it's a form of a pilgrimage and they love it you walk down that Main Street and you've gone back in time the surroundings create a state of mind that makes you appreciate that you're in a place where baseball history resides nestled between the Adirondacks and the Catskills in upstate New York the tiny village of Cooperstown has a mighty mission to preserve and protect the story of America's game at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum this really is the spiritual home of the game and we are the stewards of the game the game's history baseball and America have grown up together people come to Cooperstown come to the museum and they find their past they don't think they're going to find their past but they do its popularity indoors because it is part of our nostalgia our collective nostalgia that's the message we try to drive home that's our main goal virtually every day is to make sure that people understand that this is much more than just runs hits and areas this is about America life so many people in a broad range of people love this game pass it on from generation to generation older people like it kids follow it people from all walks of life it's it's a whole larger world that you tap into every person has played baseball in some form another as a kid I think that that's why it's America's game because everyone has played many of the objects on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum at home with people right off the bat uniforms the mats the balls the gloves the baseball cards things they have in their own lives in our collections we have 35,000 artifacts 2 million documents in our library 500,000 historic photographs in 12,000 hours of original TV and radio recordings it's where people come to learn about the history of the game but not just the game that's passed the game today my favorite part of the museum is our plaque gallery because part of our mission is to honor excellence and that it's where we do it baseball has been America's national pastime for nearly 150 years even the world over outside of our own country baseball was known as the national game of America in 1860 the printers Currier and Ives used baseball lingo to explain the results of the presidential election three candidates struck out Abe Lincoln at a home run I think it's most powerful historical thing we have it isn't about the game it's about baseball in a lot America together and how they're linked even as the Civil War raged soldiers played baseball a tireless promoter of the game was journalist Henry Chadwick some call him the father of baseball he penned guidelines for the game and developed the modern box score it was a form of minor genius what Chadwick came up with you can get the essential story of a ball game in this little space in the newspaper and you can absorb as much or as little of it as you want I think what interests me the most about the early days of baseball is that no matter how ingrained we think baseball is today it was probably more ingrained then fans then were as obsessed as fans now they kept scrapbooks sang and danced to baseball music collected baseball figurines played baseball board games cheered like maniacs at baseball games if you were to somehow magically go back in time and watch a baseball game in let's say the 1860s you would Amelie go well that's a strange way to play baseball underhanded pitching no helmets no gloves the batter was out if the hit was caught on the fly or after one bounce catchers in the early days of baseball had very little protection the first mask wasn't even patented until the 1870s you wondered how in the heck they could subject themselves to all those foul tips and collisions and balls in the dirt without the kind of protection that guys have today where they're virtually in in full body armor it's fun to watch how things have evolved I mean in the late 19th century uh somebody developed by catches basket which if you look at looks like a shopping cart strapped in the front of the catcher the ball would just fall into this big basket you know I know what you do about throwing guys out at second base after you take the shop and got off the chest this is the earliest photo of on-field competitors the up-and-coming gentlemen of the Brooklyn Excelsior's and the New York knickerbockers America's first baseball club established in the 1840s the Knickerbockers were the first to adopt uniforms straw hats and blue flannel pants in Wisconsin the Baraboo baseball club dressed to the nines in caps and bid front jerseys again flannel was the fabric of choice pot was hot back then just like it's too hot now how do you plains in August and in flannel it must have been brutal but play they did the 1850s and 60s were the heydays of the amateur era all across America baseball clubs were social clubs hosting games as well as formal evening balls so there's baseball clubs and their best nine players would play other other teams and that was called the first nine they played the entire game with only one baseball whoever won the game would get to keep the baseball as victors have it painted usually sort of a golden color and write the particulars of the game on it this is the trophy case of the Eckford baseball club Brooklyn's first baseball club organized in 1855 you'd also have a level of play called muffin play the muffin nine those were not the first string players I wasn't the second string players or third or fourth they were the worst nine players in the club the Eckford trophy case contains over 150 balls from first nine second nine and even muffin nine victories baseball clubs were not just embracing the top players they were embracing everyone everyone gets to play this is the trophy ball from the first all-star series played in 1858 it was the best ball players from New York baseball clubs against the best ball players from Brooklyn baseball clubs they charge 50 cents which is actually money back then it showed that people were willing to pay to watch baseball from a standpoint of American capitalism that's huge baseball is exciting a single guy getting thrown out at home plate guy hit the triple guy backing up running into the wall catching the ball a pitcher striking out guys after guys that's what baseball is all about by the 1870s the business of baseball was in full swing the first official play for pay team was the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1876 eight clubs organized to form today's national league the dominant team was the Chicago white stockings paced by their popular first baseman Cap Anson who batted over 300 for twenty seasons one of the earliest celebrity endorsements we see in baseball is from the 1880s and it shows Cap Anson and Buck Ewing who are both Hall of Famers kicking back and relaxing and drinking a nice beer Ohio born Buck Ewing the first catcher elected to the Hall of Fame could throw out runners from a crouched position though he ended his 17-year playing career with his home state team the Cincinnati Reds in his heyday he captained the New York Giants to their first two World Championships in 1888 and 89 his famed defense is immortalized with this ball which he fired to second baseman Danny Richardson to win the 1889 World title Danny Richardson put the tag on the on the player and he kept that ball and he handed it down to his family and was eventually donated to the Hall of Fame Mark Twain said baseball was the very symbol of the raging tearing booming 19th century Sporting Goods mogul AG Spalding agree starting as a Boston red stocking Spalding had gained national fame as the premier pitcher of the 1870s and at the peak of his career he retired 'kathy thought there would be money to be made in the Sporting Goods business he organized a World Baseball Tour to introduce America's national game and Spalding Sporting Goods to the far reaches of the planet he really wanted to show off baseball this great American game that was near dear to his heart because it really made him someone in the fall of 1888 Spalding took 20 of the best players and covered nearly 30,000 miles and five continents playing baseball they were in Paris when the Eiffel Tower was being built in Egypt they staged a game in front of the great pyramids in the sand they decorated the Egypt game ball and took pictures to document the day I mean right in the center of the picture in a pith helmet is AG Spalding with his mother next to him right once again at the center of the story Spalding also wanted an all-american explanation for the origin of baseball so we formed a National Commission to investigate its myths here's the big one perhaps the best-known myth about baseball is that baseball was invented in Cooperstown in 1839 by General Abner Doubleday a celebrated civil war hero storied Indian fighter and Cooperstown native but in 1839 Doubleday was not even in Cooperstown he was a cadet at West Point so not only did happen the Doubleday not an uneven baseball he's not the guy who did not invent baseball that's that's what it's about you can't have any lore if you don't have somebody who knows how to how to turn a story to his best advantage the world series that's the Fall Classic the fruition of what you started out to do in February all the hard work that you put into spring training all of the playoffs that you had to win for the Boston Red Sox the 2004 World Series championship was the fruition of 86 years of hard work the rivalry between baseball's two major leagues began in 1903 at the Huntington Avenue baseball grounds in Boston the American League had only been around for two years they started in 1901 who nationally had been around since 1876 the game was such a big deal that a lot of people went overflowed the stands it was a mob scene they had a lot of trouble clearing the field it shows how popular the game was people all over the grounds of this great celebration of the first ever World Series for the Boston Americans today's Red Sox the first pitch was tossed by 36 year old sy young his devastating fastball would lead him to 511 career wins today the sy young award honors the best pitcher from each league this is the last out ball from the first ever world series used to strike out the Pittsburgh Pirates giant Honus Wagner the flying dutchman one of the most highly prized collectibles the holy grail of baseball collectibles is the Honus Wagner T 206 1909 tobacco car one of the most valuable was recently auctioned for about 1.2 million dollars there are around 50 Wagner cards in existence at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is Hannes Wagner's Locker his cap autographed ball and Pirates Jersey nearby his first baseball contract and his bat when I walked through and see the baseball that they played with the gloves that they use it changes the way that I view the game you'll see that they had to be good feelers to catch the ball with those gloves Honus Wagner is using a little mitten even if he got in front of the ball it's a more difficult thing to scoop up with that mitten than it would be for Omar Vizquel or Ozzie Smith decades later in contrast to the barrel chested bowlegged Wagner was Christy Mathewson the New York Giants celebrated for his famous fadeaway pitch Christy Mathewson was one of baseball's first matinee idols he was said to be movie star handsome in the 1905 World Series Mathewson pitched three complete game shutouts leading the New York Giants to victory over the Philadelphia Athletics the Giants fiery manager John McGraw dismissed manager Connie Mack's athletics as a white elephant so Mac simply adopted the elephant as a mascot and then proceeded to trample the Giants in the 1911 and 1913 World Series when President Taft tossed the first presidential pitch in 1910 he tossed it with confidence it was the age of the automobile at the beginning of the consumer culture America was on the rise and so was baseball up went Philadelphia Shibe Park Tiger Stadium in Detroit Abbot's field in Brooklyn Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago but soon world war 1 grabbed the headlines 1917 America joined the fight within a year nearly 2 million American troops were over there and so was baseball at home baseball strategy remained pretty much the same hit and run plays bunts sacrifices stolen bases and pitching prior to Ruth the homerun was just not that big a part of baseball strategy Frank homerun Baker never hit more than 12 in a season he had two in a World Series and got the nickname Ty Cobb led the league one year with 9 ty cobb of the Detroit Tigers may have been baseball's fiercest competitor he would practice sliding until his legs were raw but it paid off he stole nearly 900 bases and scored over 2,200 runs some say Cobb was the greatest baseball player of all time but he was not universally beloved in 1918 as the Red Sox began their quest for an unprecedented fifth World Series title their ace pitcher the young Babe Ruth proved himself to be the greatest slugger the game had ever known leading the Sox to victory then the Sox sold him to the Yankees he was the Sultan of Swat he virtually invented the home run after the 1919 Black Sox scandal baseball was in a real bad rut and Babe Ruth came along and he captured the hearts of everybody in America they loved the babe not only did Ruth hit 714 home runs he had seasons where he hit more home runs individually than other entire teams when he retired he had more than 200 lifetime home runs than the next highest guy on the list and that was the whole history of the home run to that point unbelievable especially considering the bat that he was using it's like a giant bludgeon like Paul Bunyan went into the woods and felled a tree and took the biggest branch and just filed it down and went up to the plate with it his marketing value was sky-high and he endorsed of course sports equipment but he also endorsed other other pieces such as his own brand of underwear his swashbuckling and garrulous personality perfectly captured the 1920s thus the so-called Golden Age of sport his legend not only whenever he exceeded will never be approached the house that Ruth Built still stands Yankee Stadium opened in 1923 that year a new face Lou Gehrig joined Ruth to form the most devastating hitting duo ever Lou Gehrig was such a great performer Gehrig had played a record 2130 games when just shy of 38 he was felled by a rare disease that would later carry his name today I consider myself on the face the Lou Gehrig locker with his 1939 Jersey and when you think about that being as locker and this great career just coming to a quick end way to prematurely that's one that usually gets me when I walk but I might have been given a bad break but I've got an awful lot to live for thank you he was the Iron Man the great great great Lou Gehrig what a man he was my hero ladies and gentlemen it gives me a great deal of pleasure to be present at the dedication of the National Baseball Museum and the Baseball Hall of Fame I should like to dedicate this museum to all America to lovers of good sportsmanship healthy body he mine for those are the principles of baseball a baseball Museum and Hall of Fame was the brainstorm of Cooperstown native Stephen Clark businessman and philanthropist well my grandfather was not only a philanthropist and art collector but he was a visionary he also believed deeply in institution building and making institutions relevant to the community in 1939 crowds gathered in Cooperstown for the induction of baseball's first Hall of Famers Ty come Christy Mathewson Walter Johnson Honus Wagner the flame guts and that's Desai young glad that I was able to go through 22 odd years and do what I did hey Bambino and as my old friend Sally Young says I hope it kills another hundred years and the next hundred years would be the greatest the next year a new tradition was added the annual Hall of Fame game at Doubleday field stepping up to the plate for the Boston Red Sox young Ted Williams hit two home runs but the Sox lost 10 to 9 to the Chicago Cubs when I watched him play it was look like some great great artist performing he could hit that ball so hard and so far he was the greatest hitter that I have ever seen - Williams batting was a science this box of balls corresponds to the strike zone a rectangular space from chest to knees Williams himself assigned a number to each ball representing what his batting average would be if the pitch passed through that area of his strike zone as a hitter which was his obsession no contemporary was as good that's for sure 1941 was an exciting year for baseball fans Ted Williams was nearly unstoppable achieving an impressive 406 batting average for the season and joltin Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees had a 56-game hitting streak in December of that year Japan bombed Pearl Harbor Williams and DiMaggio went to war when the second war began people wanted the game of baseball to be stopped but the president says no President Roosevelt said we need baseball over 500 ballplayers went to war from the majors over that four-year period the war years gave the farm team experiment begun by the Cardinals the opportunity to prove itself the idea was to buy minor league teams sign raw unproven ballplayers and develop the strategy paid off big in the 42 World Series the Cardinals led by Stan the man Musial blew past the Yankees in five games you asked a 60 year old guy in st. Louis Stan the man is the man for him and always will be the Cardinals went on to win the 1944 and 1946 World Series where they faced Ted Williams and his Red Sox but the Cardinals clinched the crown when eNOS slaughter made his famous mad dash from first base to home water is often running with a pitch walk alive to hit the left-center water it was slaughters second World Series appearance and Williams last but no one respected hard-nosed hustling more than Williams because ballplayers are not born great they're not born hitters or pitchers for managers and luck is the key factor no one has come off Rose opted in for a hard work in his 1966 Hall of Fame induction speech Williams now a veteran of two wars and an official baseball immortal challenged baseball's racist history I hope this Sunday the names of the National Paige and Josh Gibson and some waiting to be added as a symbol the great Egg Roll players that are not here only target evocative I've never felt because african-americans were kept out of it it wasn't America's game I think of America as all of us together african-american players were playing they were planning to Negro Leagues they were playing baseball and the Negro Leagues well I was fortunate enough to be on the team with Jackie Robinson and you know he was a hero he was an American hero not just what he did for the black players but what he did for the game of baseball and what he did for this country in 1947 Jackie Robinson changed America Robinson had played for the all-black Kansas City Monarchs his teammate was the great pitcher satchel paige satchel paige was an unbelievable player and it wasn't just the fact that he was a player but his his charisma and his showmanship Branch Rickey the president general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers had actively and secretly scouted the Negro Leagues looking for great talent Rickey knew that if he picked the wrong player um it would be doomed to the experiment be doomed to failure he chose a UCLA four-letter athlete and former army lieutenant Jackie Robinson he got everything from physical abuse to racial epithets from both opposing players and fans thrown at by pitchers beaned in the head spiked on the base path Robinson silenced his critics winning the Rookie of the Year award in 47 and the National League's Most Valuable Player Award in 49 when he put that uniform on those spikes on he was tough he wanted to beat you he's one of the finest competitors I've ever seen in all my years in baseball the color barrier in baseball was a definite policy no blacks had played in the majors since the single-season appearance of fleet Walker and his brother weldie in 1884 it's interesting that while racism and segregation are an obviously negative part of baseball's history the Negro Leagues are a romantic part of baseball history the first professional all-black team was the Cuban Giants of Babylon New York founded in 1885 prior to 1920 the best black teams were barnstorming teams and they traveled a country playing playing all comers they play other black barnstorming teams they play teams composed entirely of white players they play amateur team semi-pro teams minor league teams they were playing ball the only way they could which would be to travel around and play those people who would play them for money but in 1920 black ball got organized when rube Foster of the Chicago American Giants created the Negro National League as a player manager Foster developed what became known as the Negro League style aggressive baserunning hit and run creative use of sacrifice plays be patient at the plate so you can run pitchers deep into the count better chance to get a walk get him in on base get a guy on base get him over so it was in a risky aggressive style of play in 1924 the first Negro World Series was held the Kansas City Monarchs Stars of the Negro National League defeated the Hilldale daisy's champions of the rival Eastern colored League members of the victorious Kansas City Monarchs signed this ball one black historian had said to me how can people refer to the 20s and 30s the heyday of Ruth as the golden era when maybe one-third of the best players around may not have been playing not playing white major league ball that is the 20s and 30s were also the heyday of black baseball with superstars like Mississippi born cool Papa Bell of the st. Louis stars known for his speed basically the legend is is that cool Papa Bell could shut off a light and he was so fast he could get into bed before the room went dark the neat thing about it it was true in the 1940s the Homestead Grays ruled black baseball under the leadership of Cumberland Posey Cullen Posey just dedicated his life to the running of the Homestead Grays the gray star attraction was their power hitting tandem buck Leonard and Josh Gibson who was dubbed the black Babe Ruth Josh Gibson was a man of unbelievable prodigious homerun tonight and could just absolutely crush the baseball clearly if he had played in the major and if people had had a chance to see Josh Gibson he would be known as one of the greatest players who ever play the game barely 35 years old Josh Gibson suffered a stroke and died just a few months before Jackie Robinson entered the major leagues Larry Doby just six weeks later than Jackie Robinson integrated the American League and that was a great moment for Natalie Larry but for all of baseball and and for America in 1948 Satchel Paige joined OB on the Cleveland Indians at age 42 Paige was the oldest rookie to ever play in the major leagues without its greatest stars the Negro Leagues faded away by 1959 every major league team had been integrated it had taken 13 years during that 13 season period there were nine most valuable players nine rookies of the year for batting champions five home run champion and the first sayang Award winner all black ballplayers Satchel Paige became the first Negro League star to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971 he was joined by a host of Negro League pioneers representing a long tradition of black baseball that began even before the Civil War the integration years also opened up Major League Baseball to dark-skinned Latinos from the dominican republic Juan Marichal pride of the San Francisco Giants was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1983 and puerto rican orlando cepeda in 1999 when Orlando was elected and he and I took a tour of the museum together and he goes Negro Leagues this is where my dad would have played those words weren't out of his mouth thirty seconds when he looked up in the corner at a team picture from the Dominican Republic and said oh my god is my dad it was also from Puerto Rico hall-of-famer Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates recorded hit number 3000 in his last at-bat of the 1972 season that same year while trying to ensure that relief supplies made it through black marketeers to earthquake victims in Nicaragua Clemente's plane went down and basically what Roberto said was they will not steal from me and he was going to put himself between the the goods and the criminals so that's the reason he was on that plane Venezuelan shortstop says our Gutierrez of the Detroit Tigers did not make the Hall of Fame but he did make history in 1971 de Gutierrez who was about a 200 lifetime hitter went seven for seven in a game that's seven hits in seven at-bats Werth out and out so we have Cesar Gutierrez bat in the museum it's not just the Hall of Famers it's not just their records but it is that the everyday player who catches lightning in a bottle one day and he's immortalized forever more in the record books but also in the Baseball Hall of Fame here in Cooperstown ninth inning of the decisive game of the playoff series trailing four to one but still the fighting spirit of the Giants recognizes no I ain't Ober 30 1951 the Polo Grounds the National League pennant race it's not just any pennant race it's the Giants and the Dodgers the Giants have come from 13 and a half games back to catch the Dodgers now they come up down four to one going to the bottom of a night who ever finished first they went to the World Series Bobby Thompson of the Giants at bat Bobby Thompson was a good ballplayer he's not a hall-of-fame ballplayer and nobody would know him but in 1951 God said Bobby this is your day not only does Thompson hit the home run but Russ Hodges delivers this incredible passionate unforgettable spine-tingling to this day call with three great major league home teams the Giants the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball fever consumed New Yorkers in the 1950s fans arguing about it on the subways at the newsstands and the soda fountains the newspaper columns year in and year out people say to me who's the best baseball player you ever saw all-around baseball player and I don't even hesitate I say there's two guys Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle those two guys were exciting New York giant Willie Mays was Rookie of the Year in 1951 in 52 Madol hit the first two of his record-setting 18 World Series homers in 54 a stunning defensive play by Mays simply known as the catch propelled the Giants to the World Championship against the Cleveland Indians he turned to make the miraculous catch with his back to the plate Willie Mays was talking to the clubhouse boy and the clubhouse boy told him that he didn't ever go out for Little League so Willie threw him his glove and said here take this and so this little boy went out and played Little League with Willie Mays his glove that he made one of the most famous catches in history with and today that glove is in Cooperstown in 1955 for the fifth time in nine years the Dodgers and the Yankees went head to head in the World Series this time the bums from Brooklyn beat the Bronx Bombers and the Dodgers fans went wild in 56 they were at it again in game 5 Yankees pitcher Don Larsen went down in history as the first man ever to pitch a perfect game in the World Series the following year fans of both the Giants and the Dodgers would suffer a more serious blow than losing to the Yankees the Giants announced their move to San Francisco and the Dodgers went to LA leaving behind their fans and their beloved Evitts field Abbot's field was torn down to make room for apartments ripping the hearts out of the Dodger fans in Brooklyn you know of the sport does where the game is played count as much as baseball and there's a great deal of angst when an old Paul park goes down Annabeth's field home plate and the 1912 cornerstone were salvaged and brought to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum only two years after the move West the LA Dodgers won the 1959 World Series by 1962 they had a brand-new Stadium home I call it blue heaven on earth some of the greatest players that ever played the game of baseball have performed out on that field Sandy Koufax started in Brooklyn made the move to LA and led the Dodgers to four World Series and three championships he set a new standard with 382 strikeouts in 1965 back on the East Coast the New York Yankees were up against the scrappy Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1960 World Series instant hero Bill Mazeroski became the first player ever to end the World Series with a home the 1961 Yankees are considered one of the greatest teams in history with larger-than-life slugger Mickey Mantle and his quiet teammate Roger Maris in the last game of the season Roger Maris hit his 61st home run surpassing Babe Ruth as the single-season home run leader if you only think of Roger Maris in terms of 61 home runs you miss a large part of the story he won back-to-back MVP awards in 60 and 61 he was a perennial all-star in the American League he played on 7 pennant winning teams in the 60s could you write a history of baseball and not give a significant chapter to Roger Maris the answer to that is no as the 70s dawned President Nixon tossed the final presidential pitch of the decade a new chapter began you he's sitting on 7:14 here's the pitch by downing swinging there's a drive into left centerfield that ball is going to be right here it's gone it's 7:15 there's a little home run champion of all time Hank Aaron's one of the most admirable people in the history of American sports let alone baseball a great great player most homeruns in history most RBIs in history by 300 third in all-time hits behind Rose and Cobb throw out all of his home runs he still got 3,000 hits he was class class personified all he did was put that uniform on gave it 100% day in and day out he's not only a hall-of-famer in baseball he's a hall-of-famer in class the Hall of Fame induction ceremony is a moment the last weekend of July my first week on the job was Nolan Ryan George Brett Robin Yount in Orlando Cepeda and through that receiving line is coming every hero of my childhood Yogi Berra whitey Ford Al Kaline Harmon Killebrew Lou Brock Bob Gibson Stan Musial Willie Mays I'm about as lucky a guy as that as anybody I know more than 200 of baseball's immortals are enshrined in the Hall of Fame and that is less than 1% of all men who have ever put on a uniform and played major league baseball and to stand in that plaque gallery and see the plaques of those men to me is magical I walked in that room and it's uh that's mind-boggling to me to know that the spirit of all the greatest players who ever lived within that room at one time and I stood there for a long period of time just by myself it was just it was just magnificent cause it just seemed like I was there with all these guys you know Babe Ruth Willie Mays Hank Aaron all those guys are the greatest players and they're not arranged alphabetically so you got to look a little bit for your favorite player you get a little surge of excitement when you finally discover his plaque on the wall Johnny Bench who was a teammate of mine Willie Stargell from my hometown he was from Oakland and we were friends Nellie Fox because as a kid growing up Nellie Fox and Jackie Robinson were my idols in 1972 Morgan joined the Big Red Machine with Johnny Bench Tony Perez Pete Rose and his double play partner shortstop Dave concepción the Cincinnati Reds dominated the 70s with four World Series appearances and two wins in Game six of the 75 World Series Red Sox Carlton Fisk blasted a winning home run the Sox were now tied with Cincinnati going into the final game I wasn't big strong powerful I had to learn the nuances of the game I had to do little things to make me a better player to make me important to my team with two outs in the top of the night Joe Morgan stepped to the plate and broke the hearts of the Sox fans the deathblow a simple single sent teammate Ken Griffey home to score the winning run for the Cincinnati Reds I would have played baseball forever if I could but you can't he had power he had the greatest self confidence when he walked up to the plate and that's why I became a Hall of Famer Joe Morgan was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1990 basically I said the only thing that could make this a better day is if Jackie Robinson was sitting there and Nellie Fox I said other than that this is a perfect day again those two guys had a big effect on the fact that I was even standing there that particular day they all feel that way that how how did I get here and find myself with a plaque on the wall next to Ted Williams and Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron and Willie Mays and all the great players of history I think I'm always gonna have problems trying to save a Musial and Morgan in the same breath the hall-of-fame isn't just to celebrate baseball history it's to depict and present baseball history and the Black Sox scandal is part of that segregation regrettably as part of that Pete Rose is part of that and the steroid era is part of that baseball changes with our society in a way the people who play the game change but not the game itself fans were frustrated and loyalty strained when a players strike in 1994 resulted in the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years baseball was in a slump then Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa got into a homerun Derby I could remember walking around and a young kid would say to me hey did McGwire hit one today another kid would say that so say hit one they brought a lot of people back to baseball you can have the greatest ballpark in the world and the greatest team in the world and if nobody goes through those turnstiles you got to close the game we really want people to come and learn that women have been a part of the game really since the beginning and continue to be a part of the game today in the 1990s thirteen hundred women tried out for the Colorado silver bullets the first all-female professional baseball team in 40 years twenty four were chosen in 1994 they hit the field they were managed by hall-of-famer Phil Niekro and each year got better and better and better they went out and played against men they played the game extremely well three years later the silver bullets folded but the diamond dreams did not but I still had my dream that's played professional baseball twenty-two-year-old isla borders became the first woman to pitch for a men's minor-league team in 1997 isla borders played college ball out in California her dream was to be a major league baseball player women have always been a part of the game because women insisted on being a part of the game after the Civil War women couldn't vote but they could play ball in up to 30 pounds of long sleeves high neck blouses layered skirts and high button shoes the first girls of summer who were paid to play took the field in the 1870s organized by men they entertained the crowds with bad baseball later on the women began barnstorming across the United States playing other women's teams but also sometimes playing men's teams that was in the 1880s and 90s into the 20th century women's barnstorming teams called bloomer girls offered jobs travel and adventure for young women who could hit fields slide or catch beginning in 1907 seventeen-year-old Alta Weiss pitched her way through Medical School using intelligence and a hard fastball a star pitcher on a men's team in Ohio she was one of the biggest box office draws in the Midwest in 1922 Edith Houghton was only 10 years old when she became the shortstop for the Philadelphia bobbies the team's name referred to their bobbed hair the kid was so small that she had to punch new holes in her belt and tighten her cap with a safety pin during World War two women's baseball reached a high point nearly six hundred women played professional baseball in the all-american girls professional baseball league Phil Wrigley of the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley chewing gum fame recognized that World War Two might put a real crimp in men's baseball and thought that perhaps a market might be around for women to play the game and so he started up the all-american girls professional baseball league in 1948 almost 1 million fans paid to watch the all-american girls who were positioned by their promoters as both athletic and ladylike the lingerie company Maidenform had a similar idea pitching bras and baseball to the new women of the 50s it's part of that I dreamed I did whatever in my Maidenform bra and this is I dreamed I pitched the World Series in my Maidenform bra the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum opened its first women in baseball exhibit exploring the female side of the game in November of nineteen eighty-eight the exhibit influenced a movie a league of their own directed by Penny Marshall with an all-star cast including Geena Davis Madonna and Tom Hanks it actually contributed something to the vocabulary of the game Tom Hanks line about crying are you crying there's no crying in baseball that movie in 1992 really opened the floodgates for a great deal of research about the story of women in baseball the statue that we unveiled on Mother's Day of one of the players in the all-american girls professional baseball league honors all women in baseball even the youngest women like the Pawtucket Rhode Island Slater s the longest running girls league in the country and 12 year old Maria Pepe of Hoboken New Jersey who made the boys team in 1972 but was forced off by the National Little League no girls allowed rule her court case opened Little League two girls Katie Brownell pitched what we have termed the perfect perfect game the only girl in her entire little league in western New York Katie brown L made baseball history in 2005 she struck out every single batter that she faced and she never even went to a three ball count on any of them and when I see youngsters playing Little League's Pony leagues American Legion I stopped and watching play I love to watch a baseball game I try to tell them follow the rules of the game then you're going to be following the rules of life there are too few places in America that bring the generations together and we're one of those places and that that makes us very proud there were three visitors in the museum grandfather father and a son the son said Jeter's the best the best player ever father said it's Mickey Mantle it's Mickey Mantle he was the best Yankee and his father told them they were both wrong Joe DiMaggio was the best player ever in baseball and was never gonna be rivaled they're gonna have this argument for years to come now and it's small it's very personal but that's that's the way we do it one night after hours this snapshot was found not in but under an exhibit case and when I turned it over there was a it was there was a note in the back and it said you were never too tired to play catch on your days off you helped build the Little League field you always came to watch me play you were a Hall of Fame dad I wish I could share this moment with you you know some kind I was a mess obviously some grown son had abducted his dead father into the Hall of Fame the dinosaur logo on the uniform sleeve helped curators identify Joe O'Donnell who played for the Sinclair oil team in nearby Wellsville in the 1940s he died of a heart attack when son Pat was 18 what Pat had said to me you know it was it was 20 years after he had died nice tool mister the field of dreams is a place that every child who grew up with baseball knows well when I was about 14 years old 15 years old I used to go to bed at night and I used to actually dream that I was playing for the New York Yankees well I simultaneously wanted to be Mickey Mantle and Mel Allen growing up in Detroit it was five or six times a year and my dad would pilots in the station wagon and take us down to Tiger Stadium to see the Tigers play and to enjoy simply being at the ballpark everyone knows take me out to the ball game it's the third most popular song in the United States I think about singing it as a little kid as one of the first songs I learned inspired by an ad in the New York subway for a game at the Polo Grounds jack norworth wrote the words in 1908 he had never even attended a baseball game well I hear that tune and I and I sing along with it I'm thankful that I'm part of that song take me out to the ball game that's where I want to go you know buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks and you know I still enjoy the words I don't so much enjoy the beat but I enjoyed the words I enjoy the words and what is supposed to me the idea of escape the idea of having a childlike feeling no matter what your age is the idea of forgetting your troubles I don't care if I ever get back hey listen to the ball hitting the bat here the fans cheering that's what it's all about I can remember the cigar smoke I can remember the peanut smell the beer smell the hot dogs over 40 million hotdogs are served in ballparks each season and a lot of times that's the only time they have a hotdog I know that's true for me it's part of the ritual bobbleheads they're just fun you're funny-looking they they spring up and down there's something kind of happy about them fans have collected baseball cards for more than a hundred years and memorized millions of baseball statistics a baseball fan even a casual baseball fan is aware of dozens of historical milestones while statistics are really the language of the game in many ways it's the way we measure players against one another even players of different eras against one another it's never an apples-to-apples comparison but it's perfectly plausible to speculate whether Randy Johnson was better than Walter Johnson or whether ken griffey jr. was as good as Joe DiMaggio and what would it be like if Babe Ruth came up to bat against Roger Clemens that's what the fans should do come to the game and enjoy themselves and you're in year out fans and friends come to Cooperstown we hope that they leave having a deeper sense of the history of the game of its sparkling moments of it's tough times when they come here they shouldn't be just looking for the usual suspects look for people who maybe had a good year or a good day I've turned out to be just be a good citizen in relation to the game well baseball really is a common thread of our American experience it's a little bit more important than just a game in baseball dreams can come true hard work pays off and everybody gets to play and then there I was standing at the podium in Cooperstown being inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame and you know what I felt like my mother was gonna start shaking me and saying wake up Tommy it's time to go to school learn more about America's great museums at great museums org the great museum's collection is available on DVD call 1-800 to three zero four four five three or visit great museums org museums all the treasures and tell the tales of the people and places that make America great you this program is funded by the Yaqui foundation providing opportunities in education health care human services amateur athletics conservation and the arts major funding for great museums is provided by the Eureka foundation dedicated to the educational power of television and new media exercise your curiosity explore America's great museums

Channel: Great Museums

Views: 134,996

Rating: 4.8599224 out of 5

Keywords: baseball, cooperstown, new, york, costas, babe, ruth, cards, world, series, umpire, all-star, lasorda, league, abner, doubleday, cy, honus, wrigley, fenway, cobb, sox, yankee, stadium, gehrig, kenesaw, induction, ceremony, batting, dimaggio, musial, satchel, paige, negro, aaron, pennant, integration, New York

Id: h_A2MbUO4lY

Length: 56min 43sec (3403 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 12 2009