Code. Baseball. Whatever.

I’m on vacation with my parents and little brother this week. got into Cooperstown, N.Y. yesterday afternoon, having left home around 9AM. Long drive–glad my dad was the one doing the driving. (Why wasn’t I? Because I am a horrible driver; I’ve got the metal rod in my leg to prove it.) Last night we went to a little hole-in-the-wall pizzeria, and it was surprisingly good–if you ever go to Cooperstown, hit up Sal’s Pizzeria on the main drag and get a slice of stuffed veg. Best pizza I’ve ever eaten. Wings weren’t bad, either.

We got up at the unconscionably early hour of 8AM or so and went to breakfast, then headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum (possibly the only reason ever to go to Cooperstown, I think). I went with my dad when I was younger, in 1998 or 1999, and boy, has it changed. It used to be bright and wide-open, but now it’s become a lot more like most of the other “new” museums I’ve seen. Much darker, more of the bad-countertop-plastic walls all over the place, lots of short-attention-span blurbs of text all over the place and entirely too many video screens. I was disappointed: my brother would rather rush over to a video screen than actually read the text and understand a little more about the game. I guess I was probably that way at his age, too, but it’s just disheartening to see. My dad thinks that my little brother’s all into baseball, but I’m not seeing it–seems he’d rather play video games.

Another thing that bugged me is the prominence of relatively basic information throughout the hall. I understand that part of the Hall of Fame and Museum is to educate people in the game. At the same time, though, it’s wasting a lot of space and a lot of potential value for the people who already get the game. Seeing a life-size picture of Jason Varitek (he of the Incredible Noodle Bat) doesn’t do much for me. I already know more about Varitek than most of the people walking through there and, more importantly, I’m well-versed in the game to the point where I could find out anything I wanted to know, be it hitting up somebody from Sons of Sam Horn or just some judicious Googling. The Red Sox/Yankees swag and photos seemed pretty disproportionate, too (and that’s coming from a diehard Sox fan). There’re other teams out there, fellas.

What I’d love to see is a sample of the archives. Have a floor–even the basement, if you’ve got to–for fans, as opposed to consumers. Excise the bullshit. You don’t need to tell us that the Red Sox went eighty-six years without a World Series title. We already know that. You don’t need to tell us what a brilliant player Josh Gibson was in the Negro Leagues. We already know that. And you don’t need to remind us that Bob Gibson and his ridiculous ERA were in part the result of a higher mound. Why? Because we already know this stuff. Just give us stuff to look at; I for one would prefer to look at it without the tour-guide-on-a-wall crap. Have sections for major league teams, for the Negro Leagues, for great players in particular (maybe pick a decade of Hall of Famers?), and just put stuff out to see. And you don’t need to spoon-feed to us all the information. Fans don’t need to see “This is the cap Clay Buchholz wore on Insert Date Here, when he pitched a no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles, retiring twenty-seven batters without allowing a hit during his rookie season.” If you don’t know what a no-hitter is, you don’t belong on this floor. Just give us a little card with the name, the date, and the event, and let us drink in the history.