Greetings Family and Friends,

The National Pastime, as baseball is referred to even to this day, has its Hall of Fame in a quite rural setting, Cooperstown, New York, which is quite fitting given its origins were from a time when the United States was a much more rural nation. It does make for a rather long drive to and from Albany, New York – 90 minutes each way with a fair amount of hill and dale driving. As for the city of Albany itself, the draw was as many of you will have guessed by now – a museum ship. And then there is its distinctive capitol building – beautiful both on the outside and the inside.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame opened in 1939 in Cooperstown, New York. This was the 100th year anniversary of the supposed founding of baseball by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown.

Within the HOF is the gallery that houses the bronze plaques of the members of the hall. At present the membership is 351. When the hall opened in 1939 the first four classes were inducted as there had already been classes voted in for 1936 through 1939. When entering the gallery the classes are presented in chronological order with the exception of the inaugural class of 1936 which is placed at the center and back of the gallery which serves as its focal point. The inaugural class was Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth, and Honus Wagner.

I photographed 110 of the plaques and did so in portrait mode. So use the scroll bar on the right of the picture frame to pull down the photo to see the name and career highlights for each plaque. Actually I photographed quite a few more than the 110 and was trying to pare down the number to 100 but could only get to 110 before giving myself a brain seizure. Having said that, there is one conspicuous unintentional omission on my part. Not sure how I missed this Hall of Famer. Drop a comment if you can spot who I left out – still cannot believe I missed him!

The other photos are of various exhibits within the hall including panels covering the history of the game over the decades as well as the team dynasties over various time periods. There are also quite extensive exhibits of all the records in baseball – categorized under batting, pitching, baserunning, fielding, etc. And, of course, I tried to capture any Padre exhibits, including the San Diego Chicken.

The museum ship I visited down on the Albany riverfront was the USS Slater (DE-766). A Cannon class destroyer escort of World War II vintage that was involved in convoy duty in the North Atlantic and later was in the Pacific at the end of the war. In 1951, the ship was given to Greece where it served for another 40 years. After retirement from the Greek Navy she made her way to the Hudson River.

Destroyer escorts were a more affordable version of destroyers and were originally intended as a way to provide many more escorts for merchant convoys during the war. A few decades ago the US Navy reclassified destroyer escorts as frigates but the focus has remained on anti-submarine operations.

I took the “Stem to Stern” tour which is a two hour tour and I believe the most extensive tour available. Our tour guide John turned out to be the ship’s curator who sometimes fills in as a tour guide. I think he just enjoys giving tours. Check out the gallery for photos from my tour. What is super impressive about the USS Slater is that the volunteers seem to be everywhere. The ship’s systems are hooked up to power and water from onshore, so volunteers routinely live onboard while performing tasks to renovate and maintenance the ship. Even saw one volunteer preparing food in the galley. Also, the website for the ship has more educational materials then I have seen on any other museum ship’s website. Just search for USS Slater and check out what they have to offer if you have an interest.

The New York capitol building is distinctive. Without a dome or an embrace of a modern take on capitols. Rather, in my opinion, maybe a European look in general or more specifically a French city hall feel. As you can probably tell from the photos there is a bit of renovation going on. This can be seen towards the end of the photo gallery where the prime focus of the renovation is on the steps at the front of the capitol. The initial photo of the capitol in the gallery is of the back of the capitol.

Inside the capitol is even more interesting. Early photos in the gallery show a couple of the cabinets of battle flags in the Flag Room. There are many more such cabinets housing flags for New York from the War of 1812 to the Gulf War. Took several photos in the Hall of New York with samples for each region of the state captured by artists on canvas. In the Hall of Governors, photographed the paintings of five governors. The first governor, George Clinton, as well as the four who later became president: Martin Van Buren, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D Roosevelt. Lastly, took some pics of buildings around the capitol building including the Egg.

That’s it for now. As always, feel free to share this link with anyone who expresses an interest. Next stop will touch on that bloodiest of all wars for the United States.

Until later,

Papi