National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Sports museum in Cooperstown, United States.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a sports museum in Cooperstown, New York, dedicated to the history of baseball. The building houses more than 40,000 artifacts, 250,000 photographs, and 14,000 hours of recorded material spanning over a century of American sports.
Stephen Carlton Clark founded the museum in 1936 to support Cooperstown during the economic difficulties of the Great Depression and Prohibition. The first players were inducted into the Hall of Fame the same year, including Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.
The plaque gallery displays the names of players inducted into the Hall of Fame, with each bronze tablet summarizing the key achievements of a career. Visitors often read the inscriptions aloud or photograph the plaques of their childhood favorites.
The museum stays open seven days a week throughout the year, except on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day. Exhibits spread across multiple floors, so visitors should plan several hours for a complete tour.
The Souls of the Game exhibition documents the history of African American baseball players before the Negro Leagues and their later integration into Major League Baseball. Uniforms, gloves, and personal items tell the stories of players who were excluded from professional baseball for decades.
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