Newest Hall of Fame looks back to first for guidance

At first glance, Cooperstown, N.Y., and Charlotte, N.C., would seem to have little in common.

The village of Cooperstown, founded by the father of novelist James Fenimore Cooper and incorporated in 1807, sits on the south shore of Otsego Lake and has fewer than 2,500 permanent residents. The main street features brick and stone structures housing small shops and restaurants, and most of the houses are more than a century old. It has a classic small town feel, a place where the past has been preserved.

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It is pastoral and quaint, a throwback to the 19th century, when the sport of baseball began. And the National Baseball Hall of Fame fits Cooperstown like a nicely broken-in catcher's mitt.

Charlotte, on the other hand, is one of the fastest-growing cities in the New South and its estimated population of nearly 700,000 makes it the 18th largest city in the country. The discovery of gold around 1800 brought the first influx of settlers, and the textile industry soon flourished. Flushed with cash, the banking industry soon took hold, becoming a major player in the 1970s and 1980s.

Charlotte's center city area is dotted with construction cranes, creating the newest glass-and-steel skyscraper to be added to the skyline. It can boast as being the home of corporate headquarters for Bank of America, Duke Energy and Wachovia.

It is loud and bustling and in-your-face, a symbol of today's fast-paced world. And the NASCAR Hall of Fame fits Charlotte like a powerful V8 engine fits inside a Sprint Cup car.

One of those skyscrapers under construction is the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Plaza Office Tower. In addition to the 19-story office complex, a 130,000-square foot state-of-the-art Hall of Fame and museum will open next May.

Not surprisingly, NASCAR officials -- including Hall of Fame executive director Winston Kelley -- have made several fact-finding trips to Cooperstown to meet with Baseball Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson. If anybody has first-hand knowledge about maintaining a major sports hall of fame and museum, it's Idelson, who was named to the post in 2008. Before that, he worked as a public relations staffer for the Boston Red Sox, director of media relations for the New York Yankees, and then beginning in 1994, as director of public relations and promotions for the Hall of Fame.

Since the National Baseball Hall of Fame opened in 1939, more than 14 million visitors -- about 350,000 on average a year -- have made the pilgrimage to Cooperstown to view some of the 35,000 artifacts -- not to mention more than 130,000 baseball cards -- that are on display at any given time.

The key to giving visitors a positive experience and sustaining success for any museum, according to Idelson, is determining a set of goals and remaining focused on the best way to achieving them.

The Baseball Hall of Fame rotates its exhibits and tries to come up with new ones on a regular basis.

"I think you have to figure out what your mission is and then stick to it," Idelson said. "Then figure out how the other parts of your business operation support your mission, and work backwards from that. You never want to lose sight of your mission. There's temptations to go in different directions once you become popular as a museum, but you always have to go back to your core and say, 'Does this relate to our mission?'

"We've done a great job over the course of the last 70 years of promoting our mission, which is to present the game's history in an impartial way. In doing that, and sticking with the idea of being a museum, and never losing sight of that, it has allowed us to secure collections from individuals, from teams, from corporations that are interested in allowing us to further our mission. Some collections are more challenging to secure. The memorabilia market has certainly slowed our ability to collect, but not hurt our ability to tell baseball's story. For any one event, there are certainly a number of artifacts you can use to tell a story."

While Charlotte has the luxury of building a Hall of Fame to fit today's demands, Cooperstown's facility has expanded as required. And even though the National Baseball Hall of Fame is the oldest of the major sports museums in America, a recent renovation has brought with it the advantages of 21st-century technology.

"We've gone through six major renovations since we opened in 1939," Idelson said. "The last, most recent, renovation -- which took place in a three-year period ending in 2005 -- really accomplished our vision. It assured that the museum was built for the now and future, creating more interactivity for our visitors, not necessarily creating more computer activity, although that was a piece of it. But better interactivity to relate and educate visitors at all levels, to create seamless flow-through from gallery to gallery, so that the presentations made sense, and we increased our footprint.

"So if I were starting over again today, most likely what we accomplished in 2005 would be the blueprint for going forward."

Keeping up with the times has been a challenge but the Baseball Hall of Fame has embraced technology.

Like all museums, Idelson said protecting the objects on display but rotating them often enough to give visitors a new experience is a delicate balance. For example, a section devoted to Babe Ruth's career is one of the museum's busiest. At the same time, an exhibit on the Hispanic presence in the game provides newer context.

"One of the great challenges that this museum, or any museum, has is caring for its collections in perpetuity so that generation after generation has the same opportunity to experience history," Idelson said. "The table was set early, as evidenced by the fact that many of our 19th century artifacts, many of the collections are in pristine condition. We encourage photography, we encourage videography in our museum. We have very stringent climate controls and light sensitivity with UV glass, but artifacts will still take a wear and tear, so it's incumbent upon us, for the life of the artifacts to rotate, and in terms of subjects, to provide and present new subjects to keep the presentation fresh."

With such a devoted fan base, Idelson said visitor comments -- particularly when it comes to suggesting new exhibits and themes -- are invaluable.

"There are so many great ideas that come our way, there are so many great ideas that our staff incubates every day, and determining where we go forward and how we go forward is probably the greatest challenge," Idelson said. "And it's a great challenge to have.

"We have a thriving membership base, which constitutes our core of visitors, the people who care most about the museum and its history. You don't become a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame without caring. It's not an impulse buy. Those individuals are the ones who ultimately come up with the best suggestions.

" ... We treat all visitor comments with the same seriousness, because it's no different than owning a restaurant and walking on the floor and wondering what people think of your food. It's the same thing about a museum. There are so many great ideas that spawn out of visitor comments, but the members are the ones who seem to have the greatest insight into our operation."

Ironically, the first class for the Baseball Hall of Fame was also five members.

Many visitors to the National Baseball Hall of Fame who go through the exhibits and look at the plaques may not take advantage of something that makes the hall somewhat unique: its comprehensive library and research center. In researching his miniseries about baseball, historian Ken Burns spent parts of five years in Cooperstown, combing through the books, periodicals and photos.

"Being a research center is of great value," Idelson said. "We provide a great service and we think it's an intricate part of our operation. We're three entities under one roof -- we're a Hall of Fame, we're a museum and library, and we're an educational research center.

"Our library began when we began in 1939. It was on the second floor. It was a small building, about 1,000 square feet, but the second floor was our library. It's been there since the beginning. It's the foremost baseball research center in the world: 3 million-plus holdings including more than 500,000 images, more than 10,000 hours of original recorded media and a file on anybody remotely related to the game on any level. We get 60,000 inquiries a year to our library."

Baseball's focus on education, particularly in efforts to grab a new generation of fans by connecting the sport to teaching fundamentals, is something that NASCAR could emulate.

"Education's very important to us," Idelson said. "We look at providing an education component as a responsibility, but also growing the future of the game. We reach kids in grades 4-12 regularly. And by fourth grade, kids haven't really determined what their interests are. They're still forming their opinions. To be able to take a classroom topic and relate it to baseball, so that a kid can have a better chance of learning a subject -- whether it be math or English or social studies -- we think provides great value to education in this country. Especially since baseball and American history have been intertwined for so long.

"We like to think we trick kids into learning."

One of the fan favorites is the Babe Ruth exhibit, paying tribute to one of baseball's most-popular players.

But for all the gloves, bats and balls and other historical memorabilia, Cooperstown remains in the public eye primarily for the annual Hall of Fame balloting. Every year since 1935, the Baseball Writers' Association of America has voted to elect the greatest contributors to the sport to be inducted. And the resulting debates and discussions by a passionate fan base is part of what makes the National Baseball Hall of Fame unique.

"That is one of the great pieces of debate which keeps us in the media, is who's not in the Hall of Fame and who is and who should be," Idelson said. "The debate is not why is so-and-so in the Hall of Fame. It's why isn't so-and-so in the Hall of Fame, which really lends credence to the idea that only the best of the best make it to Cooperstown. And that's not to short-sell those who aren't in, but only one percent of those players who have worn a major league uniform are in the Baseball Hall of Fame. That's a small, small number.

"There are 202 players in the Hall of Fame. There have been 17,000 players to wear a major league uniform since the National League was formed in 1876. You have very passionate fans who care about their guy who's not in the Hall of Fame. And the players they are pushing who haven't made it yet, or won't make it, it's not that they're inferior. Maybe they're in the top two percent or top three percent. It doesn't mean they're at the bottom. So it's very, very difficult to get in. Managers, umpires, executives, Negro Leaguers also have a spot in Cooperstown, but it is exceedingly difficult at all levels to get a plaque."

A 50-member panel -- which includes NASCAR officials, track owners and operators, members of the media, manufacturer representatives and retired drivers, owners and crew chiefs -- plus a fan vote will elect five members to be inducted into NASCAR's inaugural Hall of Fame class. That's somewhat ironic, Idelson said, because the baseball writers chose the same number for its inaugural class in 1935.

The library at the Baseball Hall of Fame is a hidden gem full of books, images and recorded media.

"That was a result of the election, not a preconceived number," Idelson said. "It just so happened the baseball writers elected five that year: Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson. If you look at our logo, the five stars represent the first five members of the Hall."

With more than 40,000 square feet of usable space, the NASCAR Hall of Fame plans multiple displays and exhibits that will showcase the sport's history going back to the formation of the organization in 1948 and beyond. According to the Hall of Fame Web site, in addition to trophies and other racing memorabilia, plans are in place to display more than a dozen cars, a full-scale transporter, a racing simulator and interactive displays.

The Charlotte site will also include a 270-seat theater, a great hall, restaurant and retail outlets, broadcast studios and a plaza for induction ceremonies.

Idelson has no doubt that the NASCAR Hall of Fame will flourish, particularly with Winston Kelley at the helm.

"NASCAR made a good choice in selecting Winston," Idelson said. "He's got a breadth of great ideas and certainly understands what needs to be done. He's probably doesn't need any input from me."

And when the NASCAR Hall of Fame opens its door to the public for the first time next May, the present and future connection between idyllic Cooperstown and modernistic Charlotte will be complete.