Richard Hyatt: Cooperstown is baseball’s holy ground

A few steps inside the Baseball Hall of Fame and there was no doubt this was Holy Ground. I wasn’t sure if I was in a museum or a cathedral, but in the air was a reverence not usually found in a facility that charges admission.

My friends and I were on a mission. In a whirlwind weekend, we saw games at Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park, soaking up history and overpriced beer. Now the Ton of Fun Tour -- a wide-angle photo of our group would explain the name -- was making its final stop in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Cooperstown is a quaint village that could have been created by Walt Disney. But baseball, not Mickey Mouse, is the only item on the menu. James Fennimore Cooper the writer grew up in those parts but mention his name and people ask if he played for the Cubs.

Walking among the displays, I was a kid again, studying mementos of childhood heroes like I would a homework assignment. The feelings evoked by those artifacts were a reminder that before our culture was cut into so many pieces baseball was our National Pastime, a common denominator that we all shared.

This is the time of the year when baseball people start considering names to add to this hallowed hall, and the list of potential players in 2011 is the first to be openly tainted by the steroid scandal that hangs over the game like a morning fog.

Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa and their jacked-up profiles are yet to come but this year’s list includes guilty parties like Juan Gonzalez, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro alongside mundane suspects like Jeff Bagwell, Vinny Castilla and Javy Lopez.

Suspicion will only grow as we learn more details. It unfortunately discolors the honest careers of deserving players who never gave into the temptation of artificial muscles and unearned statistics.

We can only wonder what the future holds for our own Frank Thomas. The former Columbus High and Auburn star officially retired Feb. 11, 2010. He’ll be eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014. He hasn’t been implicated in the steroid scandal but struggles near the end of his career will probably keep him off the first ballot.

But it isn’t the players that concern me. I want other grown men and women to be washed in respect like I was the moment I entered that building in Cooperstown. I want other generations to have something from their youth that still makes them tingle. I want them to know that slices of their childhood do survive, even if their hair is no longer dark and their eyes don’t see as well as they used to.

I discovered those emotions after a few steps inside the Baseball Hall of Fame. I don’t know where our children will find them.

This story was originally published December 2, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Richard Hyatt: Cooperstown is baseball’s holy ground."