Pick 17 - Hall of Fame

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is packed with hidden value.  I spent a half day yesterday taking in the various displays and got back home too late to file this report. So today I am going to double up by relating the two most important hidden values I uncovered  while I was there:

First, I found it surprising how many visitors this modest museum attracts during these financially challenged times. Adult admission is $19.50 unless you are an AAA Member [$17.50]; 65+ or Member of a Veterans Organization [$12]; or Active and Retired Military [Free].  The $19.50  may seem expensive to lukewarm fans of the game, but avid followers will pay that and more for a standing room only ticket to a high profile MLB game.

I am from the former group but now that I understand the hidden value lurking within the walls of this museum, I not only would pay the full price to return again this Summer, but I would drive the 460 mile round trip from my house to do so. Why? Because I discovered that unlike other major league sports, baseball both reflects and projects the hidden value within the spirit of America. While American politics often turn sarcastic and, at times, even fatalistic; Baseball is like politics without sarcasm and fatalism. Players contend against other players; teams contend against other teams; and like our two political parties, the American League contends against the National League. But unlike the contention between our two political parties where money talks and nobody walks...it takes the right mix of talent, skill, and luck to win the game. And instead of turning to a Supreme group that has no skin in the game to decide close calls, an Umpire's call is respected based on his track record of generally good calls. Both he and his organization have skin in the game. And that is only one hidden value I uncovered at the Baseball Hall of Fame. I plan to uncover more hidden values of baseball as we get closer to the General Election err...I mean the World Series.

The secondary value I found lie hidden in the village of Cooperstown, where the museum is located. For the  baseball fans who visit the Hall of Fame there is likely little interest in the origins of this quaint little town beyond the many fine eateries located near the museum. However, I found the town to be just as interesting as the museum for pickers of hidden value.

 Here's just a little wiki insight: During the early 1780s town founder William Cooper became a storekeeper in Burlington, New Jersey, and by the end of the decade he was a successful land speculator and wealthy frontier developer in what is now Otsego County, New York. Soon after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, he acquired a tract of land several thousand acres in extent within the borders of New York state and lying along the head waters of the Susquehanna River. He founded the Village of Otsego at the foot of Otsego Lake in 1786, and moved his family there, arriving on 10 November 1790. After Cooper's death, the village was renamed Cooperstown in his honor. William Cooper was the father of writer James Fenimore Cooper, who apparently used his father as the pattern for the Judge Marmaduke Temple character in his book The Pioneers. The story begins with an argument between the Judge and Leatherstocking over who killed a buck, and as Cooper reviews many of the changes to New York's Lake Otsego, questions of environmental stewardship, conservation, and use prevail. So  readers are left to ponder how many 18th Century values are still dormant in politics of the 21st Century.

$tokens to Tip the Pickers

1 $token - 1.00 USD3 $tokens - 3.00 USD5 $tokens - 5 USD 12345