Today's Hours: 9 A.M. - 5 P.M.
Today's Hours: 9 A.M. - 5 P.M.
This initiative provides fans with the opportunity to support specific conservation and preservation projects that the team overseeing our collections and archives has identified as critical needs.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a nonprofit organization that depends on the support and generosity of baseball fans to fulfill our mission to preserve history, honor excellence and connect generations.
Since opening in 1939, our Museum Collection has grown to more than 40,000 three-dimensional artifacts. Additionally, the Archives and Library Collections contain over three million documents, 300,000 photographic materials, 200,000 baseball cards and 16,000 hours of recorded media. Each of these items, documenting both the game on the field and its impact on American culture, are in need of continual care.
Your support is critical to the preservation of these one-of-a-kind treasures and helps ensure a world-class museum experience for generations to come.
We are grateful for all our donors and Museum Members who help us preserve baseball history. We have accomplished a lot together, but there is more to be done.
Here are projects, including artifacts, education programs, photographs, recorded media, Library documents, and exhibit updates that need support.
In memory of my Dad who was a huge Yankees fan, saw the Babe play, and was an avid bowler. We often bowled together and he always pointed out how I could improve, and he'd mail me the bowling box scores from his league play. He would have loved to have seen Babe's bag.
Donor Gerard O.
Here are select artifacts from our collection that are in need of care.
With your support, each of these priceless treasures can be preserved to help fans relive the moments and memories from baseball's past for generations to come.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s permanent collection contains more than 500 gloves — and promises to care for each one in perpetuity. The permanent collection currently contains mitts that range in age from the late 19th century to the present day.
Help preserve a glove used by Bucky Harris during the 1924 World Series, which is in critical need of care and conservation.
Help preserve a glove used by Babe Ruth during the 1926 World Series. The glove, one of more than 500 within our collection, is in critical need of care and conservation.
At over 130 years old, this elegantly painted silk banner may be the earliest baseball championship pennant in existence. Measuring four feet long and over two feet wide, the steel blue flag celebrates the triumphant 1883 season of the Philadelphia Athletics, then a club in the major league American Association. Its story is that of the club’s success, Philadelphia’s pride, and a grand celebration.
Minor league catcher Joe Gunson invented a catcher's mitt in 1888 that would revolutionize the game forever. The extra padding in Gunson's mitt would allow for catchers to stand much closer to home plate that ever before.
Make a gift today to help preserve historic a Gunson-style catcher's mitt from around 1895 that is in need of care and conservation.
The students were incredibly excited to know there were African American pioneers in baseball, just like Martin Luther King Jr.
Elizabeth Gerling, Principal, Columbus Elementary School, Utica, NY.
Our educational programs include public events that promote discussion and interaction among generations in the Museum; programs that provide K-12 students and teachers interactive and meaningful learning experiences that align with national learning standards in Cooperstown, online and in their communities; and a robust lineup of virtual programs for diverse audiences.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum has developed School Resource Kits in conjunction with the Black Baseball Initiative. The kits utilize the Hall of Fame Education Department’s Civil Rights History curriculum.
Help support this education initiative by funding all or a portion of a School Resource Kit with a gift today.
Ted Williams is my father’s favorite player, and I grew up hearing stories about him. It is an honor to help preserve images of him in honor of my Dad so that my children will also have the opportunity to learn more about this Red Sox legend.
Donor Allison M.
The Dean O. Cochran Jr. Photograph Archives at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum contains photographs of every aspect of the game of baseball. Our collections depicts the broad diversity of people on the field, the places they played, and the action of the game. The 300,000 photographs housed in the Photo Archives document more than 150 years of baseball history; they are a visual record of the game’s place in American culture.
We need your help to continue our work to digitally preserve the Museum's photo collection.
Doug McWilliams spent nearly a quarter of a century photographing players for Topps baseball cards. In 2010, McWilliams traveled to Cooperstown to personally donate more than 10,000 negatives from the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, to the Hall of Fame’s Photo Archive.
As we continue our work to digitally preserve our Photos Archives, the Doug McWilliams Photograph Collection needs to be reorganized, rehoused and conserved. As each image is rehoused, we will digitize it, which will reduce handling of the original, ensuring that it is preserved for years to come.
Bob Feller was my first baseball hero. He pitched his first major league game as a teenager before I was born. I began following him well after he returned from the war, in the late 40s/early 50s--as much as any kid from the West Coast could in those days. I also served in the Navy, and did not realize or appreciate the sacrifice Mr. Feller made when he enlisted just after Pearl Harbor. My life-long admiration of him is well justified.
Donor David K.
The Recorded Media Archives contains tens of thousands of hours of moving images and sound recordings in a wide variety of formats that date from a 1908 Edison Cylinder recording of Take Me Out To The Ball Game. The archives includes 78 rpm radio discs, phonograph records, 8 mm home movies, reel-to-reel tapes, films, videotapes, along with compact and digital video discs.
Recorded on these diverse media are interviews and oral histories; radio and television broadcasts; play-by-play and other commentary; feature, documentary and animated films; popular songs and other music; and Hall of Fame events.
Donated by Bob Wolff in the 1972, with successive gifts in 1975, 1976, 2002 and 2006, the 16mm film within the Museum’s Archive features content rich with stories from baseball golden age. The list of interviews within the Bob Wolff Film Collection is vast and deep, and includes such figures as: Yogi Berra, Nellie Fox, Whitey Ford, Casey Sengel, Ted Williams and many more.
Our team is excited to begin work on this project and to unlock the history within this significant collection. To move this preservation project forward, however, we need to secure additional funds.
Whether purchasing a membership or donating an artifact, your support for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum will keep history alive for years to come.