Today January 29, 1936, the inaugural class is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  The hall of fame rests in the bucolic region near Lake Otsego, or as  James Fenimore Cooper referred to it as, "Glimmerglass", in his Leatherstocking tales.  I watched a good portion of, "A League of Their Own", last night, so I am ready for some baseball. Without the crying, of course.
            The area's natural beauty provides a spectacular drive and visual display for the eyes, while giving the Hall of Fame a serene backdrop.  The facility itself wasn't completed until a few years later, so there were no, "on sight" ceremonies, until 1939, when the previous years inductees would gather for that year's induction celebrations.
         Baseball is one of those sports where the numbers and alphabet soup of statistics, (ERA, RBI, Whip), are tantamount to the fan in most cases. Often debates can be heard comparing this player's number to that player, across leagues, across generations even. Ruth to Cobb, Rose to Cobb, Johnson to Ryan etc, endless debates ensued for decades and the numbers are what get you into the HOF.  We have Henry Chadwick to thank for that, he invented the first scoring system and box scores thus starting the stats war that has fueled so many debates.  Chadwick was a 45 year veteran of baseball writers, and was instrumental in bringing the Hall to Cooperstown. He is the only writer to have an actual plaque on display there.
           The original class is has some of the most impeccable credentials that baseball has ever seen, and sports some of the all-time classic players... Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson.  So go out and enjoy the records at the shrine of our national pastime and hit up the areas other attractions and many other entertainment venues. There is some wonderful history trapped in those walls.