Kim and I used the Vet's day holiday to take our Hall of Fame trip, as we had to see the plaque and display of one of our favorites, Jim Rice. This was, I think, my fifth trip to Cooperstown. Click all to enlarge. Above, Rice on the banners outside the Hall.

I don't remember this sign being there before. Maybe "no Silly Putty" would be a better rule. Also note Cy Young at right.

We went right to the Rice display. Above, his jersey from '76. Note the Bicentennial Patch and Yawkey armband.

The 14 showing wear/tear.

Boxscore from '83 All-Star Game. They point out how Rice's homer was omitted. His runs, HR, and RBI columns were left blank when they should have been 1s. They also left a few hitters out of the lineup since there wasn't enough room.

Jim's glove.

The full display. You don't need to see my extreme close-ups of the bicentennial patch.

Bat and uniform from Rickey Henderson's display.

Then we went to the gallery to see the plaque. (The normal way to do it is to zigzag through the museum, before finally reaching the displays of the recent inductees, and then the gallery. But we did it backwards because we wanted to get right to the Rice action.)

Jim's face. Pretty accurate. Some of these things look nothing like the actual guy/girl.

Sign in the gallery.

Don't you wish the Red Sox had a guy who looked like this?

Rollie's handlebars.

Ted Williams statue.

We went to a really cool area about broadcasting/journalism which we'd never been to before. I recommend going there. From in there, you can look out a window to these pitcher/catcher statues.

Another new (to us) place: the Baseball in the Movies room! Here are Harvey bars from A League of Their Own.

Bad News Bears stuff, including a shot of Tatum in the jersey I have a replica of.

Bobby Savoy's bat from The Natural!

In the gift shop--Allan Wood in the Hall of Fame! (see bottom right of the Bill Nowlin book. And, yes, that's not only a copy of Cowboy Up!, but it's a VHS copy of Cowboy Up!)

Babe Ruth in his Providence uniform.

A Negro League ball from the new Negro Leagues section of the Hall.

I think this is the piece of equipment in the Hall that I feel the biggest connection to. Four times each night we watched Manny in his dirty helmet. I guess I never thought I'd see it up close. And I didn't realize that all the crud on it was so thick. [Update: a reader asked about the 34 on the side--this was from when Manny had been paying tribute to David Ortiz. I also forgot to mention the crack in the earflap.]

Another view.

Outside the "locker room," which shows a locker for each team, this sign notes that, like, a lot of dudes cheat.

One of the (many, many) reasons I didn't want the Yanks to win it all this year was so I wouldn't have to see their WS display on my trip, which I had to take because of Rice. They did win, but...the display hadn't gone up yet! Niiiiiice. So not only did we get to see a non-Yanks display, but Kim, who has a soft spot for the Phils, got to see their '08 display, above.

Close-up of a Phillies WS ring.

There's also a cool new Hank Aaron display. Here's his crown.

Twenty-five years ago, this boy sat in his room at age 8 listening to Jim Rice hit home runs on the radio. On this day, he admired Jim's equipment in the Hall of Effing Fame. Congratulations once again, Jim Ed. (He's probably not reading this, so if you see him, tell him. Thanks!)

Then we came home, I drove my car that I bought 9 years ago to work on Thursday and Friday, as it shimmied on the highway and made sounds like a dying elephant every time it slowed down...and then I traded it in today for a shiny new car. The old car paid 200 bucks and I paid the rest. Well, I will pay the rest monthly, you know the drill. Below is just about the final mileage of the old Grand Prix: