Using an iconic photo of the Hall of Fame's original inductees—including Babe Ruth, Cy Young, Honus Wagner, and Connie Mack—as his starting point, Jim Reisler explains the unusual origins of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In the process, Reisler delivers a history of not only the game’s early stars and the house built to honor them, but also the creation of the myth of baseball in America.With his trademark eye and ear for the spirit of the game’s golden age, Reisler explains that the construction of the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York was as much an attempt to revive the economy of a struggling draught-ravaged farming town at the height of the Depression as it was a tribute to the national pastime. The brain child of Stephen Clark, an heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune, and business man Alexander Cleland, the museum was a seemingly simple enough plan from a logistical perspective (as “an interesting museum” full of “funny old uniforms”), but actually required a strategic blend of bureaucratic maneuvering, creative storytelling, and good old fashioned panache to pull-off.
