When you think of the Baseball Hall of Fame, you usually think about milestone baseballs, jerseys and bats. Something someone used to do something great.
There’s a lot more to Cooperstown that game-used gear, though.
The Hall has oodles of memorabilia that you won’t see because there just isn’t enough room to put it all on display and they try to keep the displays fresh anyway.
In a climate-controlled facility are thousands of photographs. Some famous. Some not. Some come as part of a donation and require a little digging.
The senior curator for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Tom Shieber, loves a good mystery.
He recently came across a photograph of Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson, posingtogether in front of some Persian palaces.
One of the men appeared to be actor Douglas Fairbanks.
Shieber’s goal was to find out what the photo was all about. The photo is part of a special exhibit coming to baseball’s All-Star FanFest in Anaheim.
Tom Hoffarth in the Long Beach Press-Telegram has the story of the detective work that goes into unraveling some unique baseball history.
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