NYT - Sandomir: Beneath the Hall, a Baseball Vault Full of Treasures (RR)

I’ve actually been down there and it was truly amazing. On one wall, boxes and boxes of baseballs sit on shelves. The Hall vault has six baseballs signed by every Hall of Famer. Swung a Ted Williams bat, too, and got chills.

The mobile shelves inside the collections storage room — where employees and visitors must wear white gloves — contain box after box of artifacts. Gray boxes with uniforms are stacked one atop another.

Clemente, Cobb and Clemens.

Gamble, Gehrig and Gehringer.

Vander Meer, Vaughan and Wagner (Honus, not Leon).

Shieber removes a Wagner box from a shelf and pulls away the tissue paper: it is Wagner’s jersey from his time in 1896 and 1897 with the minor league Paterson team in New Jersey. It has Paterson written in red letters, red piping on the collar and sleeves, and blue pinstripes.

More blue pinstripes adorned the item with the tag No. B-13-48A, the 13th item on the hall’s collections ledger of 1948: a Babe Ruth flannel home jersey, with thick blue pinstripes, but no interlocking NY.

“Our pinstripes were thinner,” Guidry said as he held up the textile relic so Bonnie could photograph him with it. “And ours was much more comfortable.”