Take Me Out to the Baseball Hall of Fame

Today we took a group trip to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Despite the many claims inside the museum that baseball was part of every American, it's actually not my favorite sport (it goes too slow). At least I can check it off my "List of Places to Visit."

My morning did not start off great. I somehow managed to turn off all three of my alarm clocks without me being fully awake, so I only had ten minutes to get ready and meet everyone downstairs. I missed the dining hall breakfast, but I brought the trail mix my mom sent to me and ate a few handfuls of that instead. The two-hour drive wasn't bad; Mr. Chan-Law played music from his iPod, and I turned up my earphone volume so that I could listen to my own music. When we finally arrived in Cooperstown, we went to the restaurant "Alex and Ika." It took thirty minutes just to get our drinks, and another fifteen minutes before the appetizers began coming out. We were there for about an hour before everyone received their food - except me. The waitress forgot to put in my order, and had my burger cooked right away. I only ate five small bites though, seeing that it was undercooked in some places and rare in others (I ordered it medium originally). I don't really want to get angry again by going into more detail, but I was very irritated at the time.

[Root and Ginger] Beer (ginger beer is a stronger version of ginger ale). At least we had some fun with that.

Ah, the ubiquitous Coca-Cola....

We walked to the baseball hall of fame from the restaurant. It was actually bigger than I thought, with three stories of maze-like exhibits. I mostly skimmed my way through captions and perused past the endless collection of old baseball shirts (those consisted of about 80% of the exhibits). I did take my time in the small but interesting women's baseball section. Did you know that women used to have their own professional baseball league? I'm not sure what happened to it, but now it seems that softball is the dominant sport (though it originated as a popular male game). Also, the museum featured not only players, but also famous managers and owners. Unsurprisingly, the players I saw the most were Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, and Babe Ruth. Those three players are also the extent of my knowledge on the sport's history.

The museum's card collection is much larger than my brother's.



The big three of baseball - Gehrig, Ruth, and Clemente.

We weren't able to make it back to Ithaca in time for the dorm food, so we went out to a Vietnamese restaurant. I'm sure everyone was sad that they missed out on the same food we eat every single day, but we made the best of the hearty pho, stir-fried chow fun, and unusual boba smoothies (my first time having one). Once we got back to the college, the guys went to do their laundry after we played a little baseball (they bought a plastic bat and wiffle ball), and I went to complete the reading part of my homework assignment. I will do the quiz tomorrow online so that I can be excused from office hours.