Cooperstown, New York

It's Cooperstown, baby! That's right. Last Monday, my brother Don and his wife Arvilla hosted the lovely Robin and me on a trip to historic, fabled Cooperstown, New York. I was (more or less) excited enough to jump out of my skin. Cooperstown, a tiny (population 1,852--salute!) village in New York's Otsego County. Interestingly, most of the village lies within the town of Otsego, according to Wikipedia. How's that work?

The village is named for Judge William Cooper, father of James Fenimore Cooper, author of The Last of the Mohicans (among many others), both of whom once lived there (as did Samuel F. B. Morse and Erastus Flavel Beadlecreator of the dime novel).

Of course, Cooperstown is best known as the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, which is why we were there. The Hall of Fame is there because of the claim that Cooperstown resident Abner Doubleday invented baseball in a cow pasture within the village--which today is the site of Doubleday Field (above).

Cooperstown is also home to the Farmers' Museum and the Fenimore Art Museum. But we never made it to either of those...because we were headed to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, baby!