Scouting out the gems from history

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Strolling down Main Street here is like entering a Saturday Evening Post cover — with a few thousand other travelers.

Visitors pack the center of town in summer, less so now — all the more reason for an autumn trip. Still, even on Baseball Hall of Fame induction week in late July, the place was manageable. And it’s all right here on Main: the museum, the restaurants and a $2 trolley to get you around.

Of course, there are memorabilia shops galore: trading cards, pins, custommade bats. At the end of Main is the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum( www.baseballhall.org), seemingly 90 feet from everything.

Among the must-sees is the gallery where Jackie Robinson’s award resides with those of Sandy Koufax and Ernie Banks. As of late this summer, a little more than 18,000 men had played in the major leagues. Of those, a mere 1% have made it here to the Hall of Fame.

If you’re a hard-core fan, expect to spend a full day in the museum, maybe more. Sometimes the three floors of memorabilia and displays seem too much to take in. But ask yourself: “What would you remove? The fingerless gloves from the early days? The oil painting of the first game played under lights?”

I lingered an hour over the replica lockers from the various teams. But the thing I’ll remember most is old scouting reports. For Derek Jeter, a scout wrote this valentine: “Perfect shortstop body … has natural flowing movements … this guy is special.”

For Hanley Ramirez, this fortune-cookie prediction: “Tends to be lazy.”