Cooperstown

The upstate New York village that is home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame — baseball's most hallowed address.

Cooperstown is a village in Otsego County, New York, population roughly 1,800 — and yet it is one of the most recognized place names in American sports. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum has been located there since 1939, the year the museum formally opened with an inaugural class that included Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, and Christy Mathewson.

The legend behind Cooperstown's selection — that Abner Doubleday invented baseball there in 1839 — is historically inaccurate, but the myth gave the site a founding narrative that stuck. The museum now houses more than 40,000 artifacts and three million documents relating to baseball history.

Induction Weekend, held each July, draws tens of thousands of fans and inductees for ceremonies on the grounds of the Clark Sports Center. For players, the phrase "road to Cooperstown" has become shorthand for the pursuit of Hall of Fame immortality — which is precisely what AllFame tracks.