Benjamin Harry
Have you ever wondered if a copy of the 1935 World Series broadcast is available? Long forgotten, 1935 was the year the Detroit Tigers won their first World Championship over the Chicago Cubs.
Or maybe you remember seeing vintage film footage in which a Major League pitcher was using his own little movie camera to capture the action at an old All-Star game. Does that player's film footage still exist?
There is no better source in the country than Benjamin Harry, media archivist for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.
We met Mr. Harry during the spring when my son wrote a letter to the Hall of Fame inquiring about an obscure major league game that was played in the early 1960s. We didn't expect to hear back, but one day my wife received a call from Cooperstown asking about my son's letter. A relationship developed over email and phone, and then last week we took a break from the action on the Cape to drive to Cooperstown. We toured the museum on a Sunday and then spent Monday morning in the A. Bartlett Giamatti Research Center, located just beyond the broadcast wing of the Hall of Fame.
Harry took us deep into the corridors of the Hall of Fame collection. We visited the media vault and the photo vault. And at the end, we sat down for a CodBall Conversation.
A footnote...
The National Baseball Hall of Fame is primarily interested in the Major Leagues. We did see a display case dedicated to collegiate baseball (Oregon State was honored there). And in the research center, we found the books you would expect -- the Last Best League, Beach Chairs and Baseball Bats, Baseball on Cape Cod and a few novels that apparently mention the league (Slider and Storm Tide). But the ABNER Library Catalog also revealed a few Cape Cod Baseball League artifacts. We found Inside Pitch: Official Newsletter of the CCBL and two artifacts from Cotuit (Baselines and The Kettleer). Way to go, Cotuit! The Kettleers were the only organization we found in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
I know the Cape Cod League's new Hall of Fame opened this year, and I look forward to reviewing it as well. Perhaps we can do a future CodBall Conversation with the head of the CCBL Hall.