From the Coaches:
Teams from the same state should all go in and share equipment: Coolers, extra bucket of balls, box fans. They will put it on a pallet, shrink wrap it and store it for you at Cooperstown.
They say no food can come in but they don’t police it. You can carry food & drinks into your bunk house and they don’t stop you. I imagine if it becomes a problem they might start to. We always did this at the parking lot C entrance.
The cooler your pin is the more you will trade. Try to stay away from generic or small. Spend the extra money on something with glitter, spinners, springs or extra special features and everyone will want it and you’ll trade more pins.
Get a banner made then bungee it to the top of your storage bin so when it’s closed the banner shows. That’s the best place for it. You won’t take it to the field with you, you’ll just leave it on your bunk house. It rains so make it weather resistant. Our banner was pretty generic but a cool banner will make you stand out and standing out at cooperstown is fun.
They say to bring a fitted sheet but you don’t need one. They issue them for every bunk. They also say to bring a sleeping bag but several of our boys brought a thicker fleece blanket instead of a sleeping bag. Many of them used their on the plane and kept them in their carry on. Not one boy got cold and we had cooler weather so in the hotter weeks you definitely will not need a sleeping bag and you’ll be annoyed you hauled it here especially if you flew in.
The food is not good. You’ll have opportunities to check your boys out to their families - it’s best if you tell parents times that you plan to check all the boys out together and then have them bring everyone back at the same time. Checking people in and out individually is very hard because they have to be accompanied by a coach each time they check in and out and they have to be walked to the front gate by the pond. It gets old fast for coaches.
Don’t even try to drink alcohol while you’re here. Even in your car in the parking lot. They will find you or a parent or another team will report you. There were two coaches who were kicked out the second day for this and parents had to step in. Don’t even risk it. Not worth it.
Make sure your boys know they cannot give the umps any back talk and cannot swear in the dugout or on the field. We watched a kid get thrown out of a game for talking back and cursing and he was immediately escorted off the property and will not be let back into the dreams park for the rest of his life, not even as a coach. It ruins it for them, their families and everyone on the team. Don’t go home from Cooperstown this way. Talk to the boys about respect and the rules and make sure they understand there is a zero tolerance policy on this. Parents need to know too. They have no problem kicking people out if there is any disrespect at all.
They have several meetings the first day before opening ceremony and they are all long, repetitive and get hard to sit through. Be prepared for them. They have a mandatory coaches meeting, a mandatory meeting with the boys where they repeat the same info and then repeat it all again at opening ceremonies. It is a long day. Stay hydrated, bring snacks in your pocket and go in knowing what you are in for. It’s brutal.
During opening ceremonies all the teams are held in a tent and you are packed in. If it’s hot have your boys bring water - but beware that even though they need to stay hydrated that will mean more trips to the bathroom. There will always be that one kids that has to go 10 times a day. You’ll be in the tent for the first 30 minutes or longer while they tell stories and introduce all of the staff from Coaches wife to the people doing the laundry. They introduce the entire staff pretty much and its long, boring and unnecessary but it is what it is.
Opening Ceremonies are LONG. They have the teams march onto the field and turn right then circle around the perimeter and stop on the other side of the door in alphabetical order. So this means if your team starts with A you’ll be right by third base on the line somewhere and then alphabetically line the wall of the outfield. M & N should be right in the middle in center field and the end of the alphabet is in right field along the first base line. Make sure the families have a sense of where your team will be. It’s more fun for the team to sit together during opening ceremonies so you can cheer for your team louder. If you’re at the end of the alphabet you don’t want to be behind your team and vice versa, you want to be able to see their faces.
If you finish playing games Wednesday night you can go get your rings early, check out of the dorms Thursday morning and have a team ceremony to hand out rings. For 89 teams this will be the case. It was way more meaningful and personal to hand out rings this way than to go through another long and tedious closing ceremony. We skipped closing ceremony and showed up at 9pm for the fireworks and championship game. Most of the teams that make it to the championship are “super teams” where they have the best players from a team plus recruited players from other top teams or a team entirely made up of players from different teams. The Florida teams pay players to come play at cooperstown - wish there was something they could do to prevent this but it is what it is. You’ll tell by the helmets - they don’t match. The championship game is fun and worth going to even if you leave early. Week three ended in a walk off home run and was exciting up until the very end. It was a great way to top off the week.
Laundry: Every morning have one of The coaches get up to get the laundry and sort it putting everything into piles for each boy. It is way too hard to try and hand out each piece one at a time. If you fold and sort into piles for each boy then you can make sure they have everything and then they can just come grab their pile. If you have early games you’ll want them to sleep in as long as possible. Also it’s just too hard to trust the boys to do the laundry. Plan on a coach doing the collection and sorting in the morning - it will make it go faster, smoother and things will stay more organized.
PARENTS info:
Stay in a house close to the field. The best house is the old White House right next to the field that butts up next door to the mini golf place. It’s owned by Georgia but I don’t know the name of the house. Book it early! We had 4 families stay there and all our team events were held here. The house is very old with floors that have settled several inches in areas. Plenty of parking and the backyard was dreamy! It sits on a creek and the boys could go across the creek to play mini golf. The only thing that could have made this better was if you could still walk into the park. We had to drive in every time, no exceptions and the traffic before opening ceremonies was ridiculous. Other than opening ceremonies it was never too bad. Anything in Latham on the same road as the field is great.
Things I would and wouldn’t have packed for my kid: I would not bring any extra baseball uniforms. They need their helmet, gloves, bat, cleats (no Metal cleats at all), sliding shorts, cups, the white pants that you buy before hand or at the field (buy them before the lines are long at the gift shop and no guarantee they’ll have sizes. We did a big group order before hand to save on shipping - shipping gets expensive if you order individually.) They do not need their regular season uniform at all. At most pack team t-shirts that match. Any time they are playing or practicing they are in the issued uniforms, any time you go into cooperstown they are in uniform. They don’t need to bring more than maybe 1 hat because they’ll buy hats in town. The hats they issue are cheap and you will end up throwing them away after the tournament. I really wish they would charge $25 more and do a nice hat for the boys. That is the one thing they would get a lot of use out of if they bought a quality hat for them. The one they get is cheap - little league quality and it looks ridiculous on the coaches.
Here’s my after Cooperston Packing list for my ballplayer:
Carryon bag:
2 pairs white knickers (cooperstown ones)
Molded cleats
Gloves
Batting gloves
Sliding shorts
Headphones
Phone or iPad etc
Checked bag:
Flip flops for shower
Bathing suit for shower
Basketball shorts & shirts / tank tops for a week
One sweatshirt & pair of sweatpants
Regular socks & undies for a week
Pajamas (basketball shorts)
Regular shoes (like vans or tennis shoes)
Body wash / shampoo in one
Deodorant
Jock itch spray (he & many others def needed this but the spray stung so powder or cream may work better) Have them use it the second they start needing it.
Allergy medicine (for hay fever -several kids were sneezing & itching eyes)
Ibuprofen or Tylenol (headaches from staying up too late)
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Comb
Hair gel etc.
Thin pillow
Fleece (medium thickness, not too thin) blanket
Clip on battery powered fan for their face at night - extra set of batteries
Power strip (came in SO handy!!) but not everyone needed one maybe 6 total?
Charger for iPhone
Luggage style lock - you can use two, one on each side, but he just used one and it was fine. They honestly didn’t need it with their team - they’ve been playing together for a long time and no one would steal from another. They always locked the door to the bunkhouse when they were gone. I think this would be more necessary for teams that bring in players they don’t usually play with.
(I would not pack extra baseball pants, socks, jerseys, warmups etc. you will not need them at all.)
They get issued a lot of clothing by Dreams Park. Jerseys, hats, socks all in red and blue. Long sleeved undershirt, short sleeved undershirt, short sleeved warm up hoodie and two belts (red and blue). Their uniforms are expected to be perfect around the park, during games, in cooperstown etc. Shirts tucked in, right colors paired together etc. Make sure your boys don’t lose stuff. Belts seemed to get mixed up the most so have them write their name on the inside. Our coaches preferred they did not write their names on their socks because it was easier to just send everything to laundry and then randomly pair.
Take care of your coaches. The boys are fine. Don’t worry about them missing you once they are checked in, they won’t. They’ll be having too much fun. Give your boy $10 to get quarters at the arcade and they’ll be in heaven. (They don’t need to bring a roll of quarters, there is a change machine.)
Take care of your coaches!!! By night two they’ll be exhausted. Have someone run into town to New York pizzeria and bring them an XL pizza at gate C. Meet them at the benches, they’ll want to eat it outside on the benches and have a break. No alcohol in the parking lot so don’t do it. They’ll get kicked out. Just bring them a nice cold soda or ice tea. You’ll be their favorite person ever. When you check the boys out as a team if you have a coach who came with just their boy and doesn’t have a house in town take care of them. Make them homemade food! We did a big spaghetti dinner one night and it was our favorite night at the house. The coaches and their families loved it and it felt good to eat homemade food. Coaches can carry a couple grocery bags in without any pushback so bring them snacks and their favorite drinks (non alcoholic).
They say no outside food in the park but they don’t police it. The field only has Pepsi so we brought coke in our purses every day. You can’t bring coolers in etc. but we brought in our own snacks and candy. They don’t have that big of a selection at the concessions stand. There is a small selection of candy, popsicles, slim Jim’s, muffins and some hot food but we have way better food at our regular field concessions at home. The food could really use some improving. The best things we had were the rice crispy treats. The cookies weren’t anything special and the hamburgers & hot dogs weren’t that great. We loved brining in frozen grapes (when it was hot), peanuts, trail mix, fruit, homemade sandwiches, individual bags of chips etc. You can only bring in what you can carry in a grocery sack or back pack so just enough for the people in your group to snack on. Tops market in town has THE BEST cookies - they are in the bakery section in clear plastic containers. We would pack ziplock bags full of chocolate chip cookies and take them into the games in our purses. They were critical for our stress management during close games. :)
The facilities are clean at all times. You will not cringe using the restrooms at all. Order custom bats and balls early - the lines get long on Wednesday and Thursday. The photos are $8 for one 4x6, have one person on your team bring a good camera and take lots of photos of your boys. They’ll be better quality printed at home as the paper they print on is only so so. Not worth the $8 in my opinion.
Our favorite places to eat at in town were New York pizzeria (we called in our order ahead of time as we were walking out the door to drive over, then dined in, it shaved 30 min off waiting for our pizza - best way to go.) Double day café was good too. The chips and guacamole at dinner was awesome but don’t get creative and order the special. Stick with burgers, hot dogs, salads and the clam chowder was really good too.
Mels 22 café was great too. Everything we got was good. We liked the burgers at Doubleday better but the fries and sandwiches at Mels were amazing.
The Hall of Fame: Sunday was the best day to go! Wednesday and Thursday there were lines out the door. If you have 3 people it wil cost $69 or you can buy an annual pass for $70 at the door ($80 online so do it at the door.) You get a book and a couple really nice magazines. It’s the way to go. One of our friends didn’t know and they didn’t ask her - she paid over $100 for her family. Be sure to do it if you have 3 or more people going into the hall of fame. Coaches and players get in for free.
Things to do in cooperstown: Our favorite things were the Baseballism store, the bat store, Mickey’s place and Shoeless Joe’s in town. We loved riding the Trolley into town, it’s $5 for a family pass to ride all day. On Thursday we went to the Farmers museum, you can ride the trolley there. The art museum is across the street. You can buy a $20 pass that gets you into both or $12 per person each place. If you love art they have some cool stuff. Summer of 2018 they have some original letters Alexander Hamilton wrote. Also have a pretty neat Native American display in the basement level with a stunning view of the lake out back. We were only there 30 minutes but were glad we saw it. You can walk across the street to the farmers museum, it’s a 1840’s working farm and everyone LOVED it. We spent 3 hours there and had a blast. The cow had just delivered a calf the day before and we got there in the afternoon in time for the dairy local dairy farmers working there to milk the cow and bottle feed the calf. The sheep had just had lambs the week before as well. The printing press was awesome - they had real printing presses from 1820, 1840 & 1860 all the lettering, papers etc and the kids got to work the machines and press something to take home as a souvenir. The hotel was fun to tour and sit on the second story porch. They cook each day in the house and the chapel was built in the late 1700’s. So much history and the actors / staff do a great job of explaining what life was like making it fun and interesting for both kids and adults. We had an absolute blast and they had to kick us out at closing. We could have stayed longer. They have a carousel that was a blast for both the kids and adults to ride. Who knew we would have one of the funnest afternoons at the farmers museum?! If we had had 80 degree weather or more at the end of the week we would have rented a boat and spent an afternoon on the lake. We were in the 70’s most of the week (no complaints) so a lake day never happened. Some of our friends ate at the big hotel on the lake and said it was amazing. We didn’t get there but it was highly recommended. Also, if you like scenery and need to kill time, several people drove around the lake and said it was stunningly beautiful. We had fun and seeing all the historic homes and lush surroundings. People in town love the Dreams Park kids - the park revived a dying town and they are so glad when June comes and the tournament families start coming to town. Everyone is so nice!!
Before and after cooperstown. If you flew in or are flying out from Rochester or Syracuse Palmyra is a fun town to stop at, lots of historical stops there, even if you’re not Mormon the Joseph smith farm has historical houses etc that are fun to see and the sacred grove is peaceful and beautiful. The town was fun to go into and the churches on the corners were beautiful and historical, each different. Niagara Falls is a fun one to try to work in if you are headed west as well. If you flew into Albany try to stop at Howes Cavern. It’s a huge underground cavern 156 below ground. You’ll take a 90 minute tour - it’s 52 degrees so bring a sweatshirt, we were fine in shorts, you are walking the entire time. If you’re adventurous plan ahead and you can book a spelunking tour into extended parts of the cavern or a less adventurous but still more fun 3 hour tour that takes you to the underground waterfall. You wear wet suits and walk through the water. Plan to go at 9:30 am and get on the 10am tour. Otherwise you’ll wait in line for a long time. You can only go Friday - Sunday (Monday - Thursday they only take school groups through) so you’ll have to do it on your way home from cooperstown. If you want to head into Boston or New York you really need to stay through Sunday or Monday. If we could go back and plan it again I would fly into Syracuse Wednesday, go to Niagara Falls Thursday and drive to cooperstown Friday to get checked into where we are staying then you check the boys in Friday night . Then I would head East after the tournament ends, hit an MLB game and fly out of JFK or Boston. Traffic is crazy in both cities so be prepared to go from a small town with no traffic to 2 hours on the freeway.
The boys: Their favorite things were playing baseball, mini golf at the red barn down the street, hall of fame and baseballism store, farmers museum, the trolley and just hanging out with their friends.
Teams from the same state should all go in and share equipment: Coolers, extra bucket of balls, box fans. They will put it on a pallet, shrink wrap it and store it for you at Cooperstown.
They say no food can come in but they don’t police it. You can carry food & drinks into your bunk house and they don’t stop you. I imagine if it becomes a problem they might start to. We always did this at the parking lot C entrance.
The cooler your pin is the more you will trade. Try to stay away from generic or small. Spend the extra money on something with glitter, spinners, springs or extra special features and everyone will want it and you’ll trade more pins.
Get a banner made then bungee it to the top of your storage bin so when it’s closed the banner shows. That’s the best place for it. You won’t take it to the field with you, you’ll just leave it on your bunk house. It rains so make it weather resistant. Our banner was pretty generic but a cool banner will make you stand out and standing out at cooperstown is fun.
They say to bring a fitted sheet but you don’t need one. They issue them for every bunk. They also say to bring a sleeping bag but several of our boys brought a thicker fleece blanket instead of a sleeping bag. Many of them used their on the plane and kept them in their carry on. Not one boy got cold and we had cooler weather so in the hotter weeks you definitely will not need a sleeping bag and you’ll be annoyed you hauled it here especially if you flew in.
The food is not good. You’ll have opportunities to check your boys out to their families - it’s best if you tell parents times that you plan to check all the boys out together and then have them bring everyone back at the same time. Checking people in and out individually is very hard because they have to be accompanied by a coach each time they check in and out and they have to be walked to the front gate by the pond. It gets old fast for coaches.
Don’t even try to drink alcohol while you’re here. Even in your car in the parking lot. They will find you or a parent or another team will report you. There were two coaches who were kicked out the second day for this and parents had to step in. Don’t even risk it. Not worth it.
Make sure your boys know they cannot give the umps any back talk and cannot swear in the dugout or on the field. We watched a kid get thrown out of a game for talking back and cursing and he was immediately escorted off the property and will not be let back into the dreams park for the rest of his life, not even as a coach. It ruins it for them, their families and everyone on the team. Don’t go home from Cooperstown this way. Talk to the boys about respect and the rules and make sure they understand there is a zero tolerance policy on this. Parents need to know too. They have no problem kicking people out if there is any disrespect at all.
They have several meetings the first day before opening ceremony and they are all long, repetitive and get hard to sit through. Be prepared for them. They have a mandatory coaches meeting, a mandatory meeting with the boys where they repeat the same info and then repeat it all again at opening ceremonies. It is a long day. Stay hydrated, bring snacks in your pocket and go in knowing what you are in for. It’s brutal.
During opening ceremonies all the teams are held in a tent and you are packed in. If it’s hot have your boys bring water - but beware that even though they need to stay hydrated that will mean more trips to the bathroom. There will always be that one kids that has to go 10 times a day. You’ll be in the tent for the first 30 minutes or longer while they tell stories and introduce all of the staff from Coaches wife to the people doing the laundry. They introduce the entire staff pretty much and its long, boring and unnecessary but it is what it is.
Opening Ceremonies are LONG. They have the teams march onto the field and turn right then circle around the perimeter and stop on the other side of the door in alphabetical order. So this means if your team starts with A you’ll be right by third base on the line somewhere and then alphabetically line the wall of the outfield. M & N should be right in the middle in center field and the end of the alphabet is in right field along the first base line. Make sure the families have a sense of where your team will be. It’s more fun for the team to sit together during opening ceremonies so you can cheer for your team louder. If you’re at the end of the alphabet you don’t want to be behind your team and vice versa, you want to be able to see their faces.
If you finish playing games Wednesday night you can go get your rings early, check out of the dorms Thursday morning and have a team ceremony to hand out rings. For 89 teams this will be the case. It was way more meaningful and personal to hand out rings this way than to go through another long and tedious closing ceremony. We skipped closing ceremony and showed up at 9pm for the fireworks and championship game. Most of the teams that make it to the championship are “super teams” where they have the best players from a team plus recruited players from other top teams or a team entirely made up of players from different teams. The Florida teams pay players to come play at cooperstown - wish there was something they could do to prevent this but it is what it is. You’ll tell by the helmets - they don’t match. The championship game is fun and worth going to even if you leave early. Week three ended in a walk off home run and was exciting up until the very end. It was a great way to top off the week.
Laundry: Every morning have one of The coaches get up to get the laundry and sort it putting everything into piles for each boy. It is way too hard to try and hand out each piece one at a time. If you fold and sort into piles for each boy then you can make sure they have everything and then they can just come grab their pile. If you have early games you’ll want them to sleep in as long as possible. Also it’s just too hard to trust the boys to do the laundry. Plan on a coach doing the collection and sorting in the morning - it will make it go faster, smoother and things will stay more organized.
PARENTS info:
Stay in a house close to the field. The best house is the old White House right next to the field that butts up next door to the mini golf place. It’s owned by Georgia but I don’t know the name of the house. Book it early! We had 4 families stay there and all our team events were held here. The house is very old with floors that have settled several inches in areas. Plenty of parking and the backyard was dreamy! It sits on a creek and the boys could go across the creek to play mini golf. The only thing that could have made this better was if you could still walk into the park. We had to drive in every time, no exceptions and the traffic before opening ceremonies was ridiculous. Other than opening ceremonies it was never too bad. Anything in Latham on the same road as the field is great.
Things I would and wouldn’t have packed for my kid: I would not bring any extra baseball uniforms. They need their helmet, gloves, bat, cleats (no Metal cleats at all), sliding shorts, cups, the white pants that you buy before hand or at the field (buy them before the lines are long at the gift shop and no guarantee they’ll have sizes. We did a big group order before hand to save on shipping - shipping gets expensive if you order individually.) They do not need their regular season uniform at all. At most pack team t-shirts that match. Any time they are playing or practicing they are in the issued uniforms, any time you go into cooperstown they are in uniform. They don’t need to bring more than maybe 1 hat because they’ll buy hats in town. The hats they issue are cheap and you will end up throwing them away after the tournament. I really wish they would charge $25 more and do a nice hat for the boys. That is the one thing they would get a lot of use out of if they bought a quality hat for them. The one they get is cheap - little league quality and it looks ridiculous on the coaches.
Here’s my after Cooperston Packing list for my ballplayer:
Carryon bag:
2 pairs white knickers (cooperstown ones)
Molded cleats
Gloves
Batting gloves
Sliding shorts
Headphones
Phone or iPad etc
Checked bag:
Flip flops for shower
Bathing suit for shower
Basketball shorts & shirts / tank tops for a week
One sweatshirt & pair of sweatpants
Regular socks & undies for a week
Pajamas (basketball shorts)
Regular shoes (like vans or tennis shoes)
Body wash / shampoo in one
Deodorant
Jock itch spray (he & many others def needed this but the spray stung so powder or cream may work better) Have them use it the second they start needing it.
Allergy medicine (for hay fever -several kids were sneezing & itching eyes)
Ibuprofen or Tylenol (headaches from staying up too late)
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Comb
Hair gel etc.
Thin pillow
Fleece (medium thickness, not too thin) blanket
Clip on battery powered fan for their face at night - extra set of batteries
Power strip (came in SO handy!!) but not everyone needed one maybe 6 total?
Charger for iPhone
Luggage style lock - you can use two, one on each side, but he just used one and it was fine. They honestly didn’t need it with their team - they’ve been playing together for a long time and no one would steal from another. They always locked the door to the bunkhouse when they were gone. I think this would be more necessary for teams that bring in players they don’t usually play with.
(I would not pack extra baseball pants, socks, jerseys, warmups etc. you will not need them at all.)
They get issued a lot of clothing by Dreams Park. Jerseys, hats, socks all in red and blue. Long sleeved undershirt, short sleeved undershirt, short sleeved warm up hoodie and two belts (red and blue). Their uniforms are expected to be perfect around the park, during games, in cooperstown etc. Shirts tucked in, right colors paired together etc. Make sure your boys don’t lose stuff. Belts seemed to get mixed up the most so have them write their name on the inside. Our coaches preferred they did not write their names on their socks because it was easier to just send everything to laundry and then randomly pair.
Take care of your coaches. The boys are fine. Don’t worry about them missing you once they are checked in, they won’t. They’ll be having too much fun. Give your boy $10 to get quarters at the arcade and they’ll be in heaven. (They don’t need to bring a roll of quarters, there is a change machine.)
Take care of your coaches!!! By night two they’ll be exhausted. Have someone run into town to New York pizzeria and bring them an XL pizza at gate C. Meet them at the benches, they’ll want to eat it outside on the benches and have a break. No alcohol in the parking lot so don’t do it. They’ll get kicked out. Just bring them a nice cold soda or ice tea. You’ll be their favorite person ever. When you check the boys out as a team if you have a coach who came with just their boy and doesn’t have a house in town take care of them. Make them homemade food! We did a big spaghetti dinner one night and it was our favorite night at the house. The coaches and their families loved it and it felt good to eat homemade food. Coaches can carry a couple grocery bags in without any pushback so bring them snacks and their favorite drinks (non alcoholic).
They say no outside food in the park but they don’t police it. The field only has Pepsi so we brought coke in our purses every day. You can’t bring coolers in etc. but we brought in our own snacks and candy. They don’t have that big of a selection at the concessions stand. There is a small selection of candy, popsicles, slim Jim’s, muffins and some hot food but we have way better food at our regular field concessions at home. The food could really use some improving. The best things we had were the rice crispy treats. The cookies weren’t anything special and the hamburgers & hot dogs weren’t that great. We loved brining in frozen grapes (when it was hot), peanuts, trail mix, fruit, homemade sandwiches, individual bags of chips etc. You can only bring in what you can carry in a grocery sack or back pack so just enough for the people in your group to snack on. Tops market in town has THE BEST cookies - they are in the bakery section in clear plastic containers. We would pack ziplock bags full of chocolate chip cookies and take them into the games in our purses. They were critical for our stress management during close games. :)
The facilities are clean at all times. You will not cringe using the restrooms at all. Order custom bats and balls early - the lines get long on Wednesday and Thursday. The photos are $8 for one 4x6, have one person on your team bring a good camera and take lots of photos of your boys. They’ll be better quality printed at home as the paper they print on is only so so. Not worth the $8 in my opinion.
Our favorite places to eat at in town were New York pizzeria (we called in our order ahead of time as we were walking out the door to drive over, then dined in, it shaved 30 min off waiting for our pizza - best way to go.) Double day café was good too. The chips and guacamole at dinner was awesome but don’t get creative and order the special. Stick with burgers, hot dogs, salads and the clam chowder was really good too.
Mels 22 café was great too. Everything we got was good. We liked the burgers at Doubleday better but the fries and sandwiches at Mels were amazing.
The Hall of Fame: Sunday was the best day to go! Wednesday and Thursday there were lines out the door. If you have 3 people it wil cost $69 or you can buy an annual pass for $70 at the door ($80 online so do it at the door.) You get a book and a couple really nice magazines. It’s the way to go. One of our friends didn’t know and they didn’t ask her - she paid over $100 for her family. Be sure to do it if you have 3 or more people going into the hall of fame. Coaches and players get in for free.
Things to do in cooperstown: Our favorite things were the Baseballism store, the bat store, Mickey’s place and Shoeless Joe’s in town. We loved riding the Trolley into town, it’s $5 for a family pass to ride all day. On Thursday we went to the Farmers museum, you can ride the trolley there. The art museum is across the street. You can buy a $20 pass that gets you into both or $12 per person each place. If you love art they have some cool stuff. Summer of 2018 they have some original letters Alexander Hamilton wrote. Also have a pretty neat Native American display in the basement level with a stunning view of the lake out back. We were only there 30 minutes but were glad we saw it. You can walk across the street to the farmers museum, it’s a 1840’s working farm and everyone LOVED it. We spent 3 hours there and had a blast. The cow had just delivered a calf the day before and we got there in the afternoon in time for the dairy local dairy farmers working there to milk the cow and bottle feed the calf. The sheep had just had lambs the week before as well. The printing press was awesome - they had real printing presses from 1820, 1840 & 1860 all the lettering, papers etc and the kids got to work the machines and press something to take home as a souvenir. The hotel was fun to tour and sit on the second story porch. They cook each day in the house and the chapel was built in the late 1700’s. So much history and the actors / staff do a great job of explaining what life was like making it fun and interesting for both kids and adults. We had an absolute blast and they had to kick us out at closing. We could have stayed longer. They have a carousel that was a blast for both the kids and adults to ride. Who knew we would have one of the funnest afternoons at the farmers museum?! If we had had 80 degree weather or more at the end of the week we would have rented a boat and spent an afternoon on the lake. We were in the 70’s most of the week (no complaints) so a lake day never happened. Some of our friends ate at the big hotel on the lake and said it was amazing. We didn’t get there but it was highly recommended. Also, if you like scenery and need to kill time, several people drove around the lake and said it was stunningly beautiful. We had fun and seeing all the historic homes and lush surroundings. People in town love the Dreams Park kids - the park revived a dying town and they are so glad when June comes and the tournament families start coming to town. Everyone is so nice!!
Before and after cooperstown. If you flew in or are flying out from Rochester or Syracuse Palmyra is a fun town to stop at, lots of historical stops there, even if you’re not Mormon the Joseph smith farm has historical houses etc that are fun to see and the sacred grove is peaceful and beautiful. The town was fun to go into and the churches on the corners were beautiful and historical, each different. Niagara Falls is a fun one to try to work in if you are headed west as well. If you flew into Albany try to stop at Howes Cavern. It’s a huge underground cavern 156 below ground. You’ll take a 90 minute tour - it’s 52 degrees so bring a sweatshirt, we were fine in shorts, you are walking the entire time. If you’re adventurous plan ahead and you can book a spelunking tour into extended parts of the cavern or a less adventurous but still more fun 3 hour tour that takes you to the underground waterfall. You wear wet suits and walk through the water. Plan to go at 9:30 am and get on the 10am tour. Otherwise you’ll wait in line for a long time. You can only go Friday - Sunday (Monday - Thursday they only take school groups through) so you’ll have to do it on your way home from cooperstown. If you want to head into Boston or New York you really need to stay through Sunday or Monday. If we could go back and plan it again I would fly into Syracuse Wednesday, go to Niagara Falls Thursday and drive to cooperstown Friday to get checked into where we are staying then you check the boys in Friday night . Then I would head East after the tournament ends, hit an MLB game and fly out of JFK or Boston. Traffic is crazy in both cities so be prepared to go from a small town with no traffic to 2 hours on the freeway.
The boys: Their favorite things were playing baseball, mini golf at the red barn down the street, hall of fame and baseballism store, farmers museum, the trolley and just hanging out with their friends.
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