Cooperstown advice

I posted another thread in the Break Room, but figured one here could also be beneficial.

My wife, son and I are going to be heading to Cooperstown next week for a mini-vacation. Anybody been there before? Any helpful suggestions or secrets to be aware of?

I am a baseball nut, and love the history of the game. My wife...not so much. So, I'm going to have to balance how much time we spend there. How long have you spent?

Any other shops/stores that are "musts" while we're there? Restaurants?

Thanks for any help!

There’s not a ton to do in Cooperstown aside from the HOF. I spent a week there with my sons baseball team at Field of Dreams park for the big weekly 12u baseball tourneys, so admittedly we didn’t have a ton of time off the field to do stuff. You can pretty much see and do everything downtown (including the HOF) in a half day. Lots of baseball card/memorabilia shops. There’s a really good Gelato place, but I can’t remember the name. Cooperstown is kind of in the middle of nowhere, and it’s a small town, so options are limited.

I've never been to Cooperstown but I feel like I'd really appreciate visiting the HOF. Hope you enjoy the trip.

Plenty of shops to keep your wife interested. My wife likes baseball, but was still skeptical about going. Needless to say, she loved it.

I posted another thread in the Break Room, but figured one here could also be beneficial.

 

My wife, son and I are going to be heading to Cooperstown next week for a mini-vacation. Anybody been there before? Any helpful suggestions or secrets to be aware of?

 

I am a baseball nut, and love the history of the game. My wife...not so much. So, I'm going to have to balance how much time we spend there. How long have you spent?

 

Any other shops/stores that are "musts" while we're there? Restaurants?

 

Thanks for any help!

Have fun and enjoy your trip. Let me know the do’s and dont’s when you get back. That is on my bucket list.

Make sure you walk down to the lake, can't remember the name of it. There is a hotel on the lake that is awesome. Have a drink on the back patio. We were there a couple of years ago. There was a good BBQ place on the right side of the road as you are headed into Cooperstown

Have fun and enjoy your trip. Let me know the do’s and dont’s when you get back. That is on my bucket list.

Was there on Monday. Loved it. You will too, no doubt.

Some of my observations:

*You've got three distinct options for parking. One is metered, but limited to two hours at a time. Another is one of the paid daily lots. And the third is one of the three free lots that are further out, but covered by a trolley shuttle. (I think a family pass for a day is $5 for the shuttle). We paid $10 for one of the daily lots, just so we could have our vehicle closer.

* We were on the front sidewalk 15 minutes after they opened...and there were easily 75-100 people already in line. A good third of those were probably young ball players. I'm guessing some teams decided to do the HOF before their game that day. It took us another 15-20 minutes until we actually got inside (and we already had purchased tickets!).

*They let about 10-15 people in at a time, it seemed. I'm not sure if that's normal or not, as they were setting up the rope line when we finally got inside, which allowed for more people to come in. You still have to wait until one of the customer rep's are free so that you can either a.) buy your tickets, or b.) show them your pre-purchased tickets.

*Go ahead and get your hand stamped at that time. It allows you to leave and come back later on in the day. We took advantage of that around lunch time.

*The museum is a wild free-for-all. And by that, I mean that there's no definitive way/order for you to take everything in. Yes, there's some structure to the thing (chronologically speaking), but there's nothing that says you have to see A before you can see B. So, remember all those young ballplayers I mentioned before? Yeah, they're flitting around everywhere like mosquitoes, constantly in and out and around you all the time.

*If you read the description of everything...you'll be there a very, very long time. There's just a lot of stuff there. Did I "see" everything? Pretty close. Did I "read" about everything? No. I got a lot, but nowhere near everything.

*I (we) spent about 4 hours in the museum. Then we took a break for lunch. There's several places downtown that are within easy walking distance. There's nothing inside the HOF to eat at, so don't plan on getting anything while you're there.

*I can't tell you the feeling I had walking through the actual HOF and reading the plaques. As a baseball geek, there was just something special about it. These were the legends. These were your boyhood idols. The guys you grew up watching play. I can't explain it. I went through the Hall twice. The first time was with my son, and we talked in general about some of the players. Then I went back and went through all of them again by myself. (During this time, he and my wife went to the gift shop.) I'm not sure how long I spent in the Hall portion, but I think it was probably around 90 minutes or so. Again, it'll depend on how much you want to read. I think I read 65-75% of the plaques. (Some of the early, early guys I just skimmed.)

Hope that helps. If your son or daughters don't want to go...let me know, and I'll gladly go again!