COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. – In a quiet, dark room on the third floor of the National Baseball Hall of Fame sits a baseball, just like all the other baseballs on display, behind a glass case.

Except, like all the other baseballs in the Hall of Fame, this isn’t just any baseball. It’s a baseball that was used by pitcher Bill Dineen to strike out Honus Wagner and end the 1903 World Series, considered to be the first modern Major League Baseball championship. The winner? Boston’s American League team.

There’s a reflection in the glass, and if you stand in front of the ball just so, the glass reveals a life-size photograph of David Ortiz – a hero of the 2004 World Series, the most recent Major League Baseball championship. The winner? Boston’s team – by then, the only one in the city – the Red Sox.

The Dineen ball and the Ortiz picture bring together the essence of the Hall of Fame. The Hall honors the old and celebrates the new.

Hall of Fame officials claim their institution has three missions. It’s a museum designed to preserve and display artifacts. It’s an educational and research center for scholars and children. And it’s a shrine to baseball’s greats.

But those officials forgot something, and it’s the reason that the Hall of Fame draws more than a quarter of a million visitors a year.

The Hall of Fame represents anything that ever drove any baseball fan to watch another game or read another linescore or collect another card. It’s the feeling you get when you see a baseball bat used by Babe Ruth. It’s Ted Williams’ cap. It’s the gloves, the baseballs, and the jerseys.

It’s The Shot Heard ‘Round the World. It’s The Catch. It’s The Sock. And it’s the ultimate destination for anyone who has ever been touched by baseball.

Baseball town

Cooperstown isn’t an easy destination to reach, however.

Once you turn off rumbling Interstate 88 in New York, 70 miles west of Albany in central New York, it’s a 17-mile drive of rolling green hills and antique shops before even you hit the first signs of baseball life – a complex of fields for youth baseball.

The rural location didn’t seem to bother the National Soccer Hall of Fame, which is located about 20 miles away in a town called Oneonta. The Soccer Hall has a small ticket outlet set up in Cooperstown and even touts its proximity to the Baseball Hall as one of the reasons the Soccer Hall is in Oneonta.

Despite its remote location, the Baseball Hall of Fame still averages 350,000 visitors per year (attendance was 316,000 in 2004). Last year the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, had 181,153 visitors. The Basketball Hall hit a high of 173,898 in 1994.

Cooperstown’s downtown area – just Main Street, really, surrounded by old homes on Otsego Lake – is quaint yet dominated by shops and restaurants dedicated to serving Hall of Fame visitors. Bat companies and T-shirt shops, including a souvenir store endorsed by banned-for-life baseball star Pete Rose, are housed in old buildings. Maine visitors might recognize a little bit of Freeport in Cooperstown.

The brick Hall of Fame building itself, which is located at the end of Main Street, looks almost like it belongs on a college campus.

Doubleday Field, the site of the annual Hall of Fame Game, including last May’s game between the Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers, is down a side street.

The field’s site is a matter of debate – as is any claim that Cooperstown was the birthplace of baseball – but supposedly Abner Doubleday laid out the first diamond on the site in 1839.

It’s an issue the Hall of Fame addresses frequently. Baseball likely grew up in towns in the Northeast throughout the 19th century, but a commission appointed to determine baseball’s origin found in 1907 that Doubleday, a Cooperstown resident, first laid out basic baseball rules in 1839.

“Cooperstown is an important symbolic site for baseball, but it’s really not the birthplace of baseball,” said Tim Wiles, the Hall of Fame’s director of research.

“We’re trying to get that message out there. Like other things in history, it didn’t really happen the way we’re taught it happened. But Cooperstown is a very acceptable symbolic site for the kind of place baseball would have come from.”

The Museum

When it arrived, The Sock literally stunk.

But the Hall of Fame couldn’t have been happier to have the bloody footwear Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling wore during Game 2 of the World Series. In fact, it has become one of the Hall’s most popular displays.

Red Sox fans, of course, recall that Schilling, who had a suture removed from his right ankle before the game against the St. Louis Cardinals, started to bleed during the game but pitched the Sox to a 6-2 win. Two games later Boston had its first World Series championship in 86 years.

The Hall of Fame has just the place for such items – its third-floor “Autumn Glory: A Postseason Celebration” exhibit, is part of the same display that houses the 1903 Series ball.

The bulk of the items on display – the Hall has 35,000 artifacts in its possession but only about 1,000 on display and another 500 in a traveling exhibit – are in the museum’s timeline on the second floor.

The timeline is broken into three large sections (1900-30, 1930-60, and 1960-2000) with artifacts arranged chronologically. There are separate displays about the roots of baseball, Babe Ruth, women in baseball, black players and the Negro Leagues, youth baseball, no-hit games, presidential involvement in baseball, and baseball cards.

One of the biggest challenges the Hall of Fame faces is keeping up with baseball’s everyday changes. The Hall addresses that issue with a board set up outside the building with the daily American League and National League standings, and also in some of the displays on the second floor.

One recent morning, Hall of Fame public relations director Brad Horn pulled a brown delivery box from under his desk. Inside was a donation from San Diego Padres closer Trevor Hoffman – the jersey he was wearing the night he earned his 400th save.

Hoffman’s jersey will go into a second-floor display called “Today’s Game.” The exhibit is a room full of open lockers, one for each team, with the Hall’s most recent acquisitions.

The Red Sox locker includes items such as a Bill Mueller jersey from a July 29, 2003, game in which he hit grand slams from the left and right sides of the plate, the bat Johnny Damon used to get three hits in one inning on June 27, 2003, and Derek Lowe’s spikes from his April 27, 2002, no-hitter.

Everything on display – in fact, every artifact the Hall owns – has been donated. Horn said the Hall often asks players to set aside something if they care to make a donation to the collection. That’s the reason the Hall of Fame has a big display of memorabilia from Ichiro Suzuki’s record-setting 2004 season during which the Seattle Mariners outfielder recorded 262 hits to break Hall of Famer George Sisler’s mark of 257 hits set in 1920.

It’s also how the Hall of Fame got the sock – or The Sock, as it’s now known.

After the Series ended, Schilling donated his right baseball spike, on which he had written “K ALS” in reference to striking out the disease ALS in honor of Hall of Famers Lou Gehrig and Catfish Hunter, who both died of the disease. A few months later, Schilling called the Hall of Fame to donate the bloody sock.

On Feb. 8 his in-laws, who had driven up from Baltimore, hand-delivered the sock in a plastic baggie.

“I was there when it came in and you could smell it from four feet away,” said Hall of Fame librarian Jim Gates.

But The Sock isn’t what you’d expect. About 10 months after Schilling wore it that October night, the blood has faded to a medium brown with some spots of pink.

It’s now behind a glass case with other items from the Series. Derek Lowe’s road jersey is here. So are Keith Foulke’s spikes and Orlando Cabrera’s glove, Manny Ramirez’s Game 4 bat and the bat Johnny Damon used to hit his solo home run in the first inning of Game 4. Pedro Martinez’s Game 3 hat and a World Series ring are also there.

Another item that attracts interest from Red Sox fans is a digital reproduction of the 1919 promissory note for the $100,000 that the Yankees paid the Red Sox for Babe Ruth – placed next to a carton of Brigham Ice Cream’s Reverse the Curse flavor.

“It was good to see all that up there,” said Dennis Smith, a 39-year-old Easton, Mass., native and Army man who is on leave from Fort Polk in Louisiana.

Smith has lived in bases all over the country. But he never lost his fervor for the Sox, and he shepherded his four children, all under the age of 7, around the Hall one recent morning to get a look at the World Series collection.

“They saw the sock and wanted to know about it,” he said with a smile.

The Shrine

Unlike most of the building, which is kept dark in order to preserve the artifacts, the Hall of Fame shrine is a sunny, airy rectangular room.

The dark bronze plaques are organized chronologically, but there are many ways to walk through the room. To begin at the beginning, walk past the rest of the plaques to see those of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, and Honus Wagner. They were the first group to be inducted in 1936.

After marveling at the first baseball superstars, walk back down to the beginning to see the rest of the Hall of Famers.

You’ll see names you’ve never heard of – umpires, early executives – and names that might make your heart stop – Tris Speaker, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Duke Snider, Mike Schmidt, Nolan Ryan.

You’ll see Dizzy Dean and Dazzy Vance. “Big Poison” Paul Glen Waner and his brother, “Little Poison” Lloyd James Waner.

Leon Allen “Goose” Goslin. Joseph Michael “Ducky Wucky” Medwick. Norman Thomas “Turkey” Stearnes.

And those we know better by their nicknames. Edward Charles (Whitey) Ford. Denton True (Cy) Young. Charles Dillon (Casey) Stengel.

Red Sox fans have plenty to see here, too. Joe Cronin (1956), Bobby Doerr (1986), Rick Ferrell (1984), Carlton Fisk (2000), Jimmie Foxx (1951), Lefty Grove (1947), Ted Williams (1966), and Carl Yastrzemski (1989). Later this year, Wade Boggs will be inducted. Three players from the Boston Beaneaters, the National League team that evolved into the Atlanta Braves, are enshrined, too.

Williams has a special place in the shrine, where a memorial is set up for the Hall of Famers who served in a war. Williams was the only Hall member to have served in two wars (World War II and Korea).

Almost everyone has their favorite, from the Babe (1936) to Gary Carter (2004).

“For me, I always go and touch the plaque of Pee Wee Reese,” said University of Rochester professor George Grella. “I grew up a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers and he was my idol. Everybody had a ballplayer you loved. Some people liked Duke Snider, the Yankees fans liked Joe DiMaggio, but I loved Pee Wee Reese, and he was a great ballplayer and great guy.”

Education and research

On a recent warm, late spring evening, a group of professors, authors, and researchers gathered on a field to try playing town baseball using rules adopted in Dedham, Mass., in 1858. Instead of three bases there are four stakes, and there’s no foul territory. It’s as basic as baseball comes.

The evening, including Hall of Fame director of research Wiles dressed up as the Mighty Casey character from the 1888 poem “Casey at the Bat,” was part of the Hall’s Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture. The three-day symposium, which is also hosted by the State University of New York College at Oneonta, is just one of the ways the Hall reaches researchers and educators.

After the town ballgame and the dinner that followed, Wiles recited from memory the 52-line Casey poem. Wiles has recited the poem in front of about 60,000 people (the 1999 Hall of Fame induction ceremony for Nolan Ryan, Robin Yount, and George Brett) and as few as four (the family of 1976 inductee Robin Roberts).

Researchers flock to the Giamatti Research Center that contains about 2.6 million documents, plus more than 12,000 hours of moving image and sound recordings, more than 500,000 images, and a file on every major leaguer and some minor league players, too. The library is accessible to the public.

The Hall of Fame has plenty of offerings for kids. Museum attendance is seasonal, with 70 percent of visitors going to the Hall between Memorial Day and Labor Day when students are traditionally on summer vacation. About 21 percent of the Hall’s visitors are children in the 12-and-under age group.

For students who are too far away to visit the museum, there’s the EBBETS Field Trip Series of live videoconferences. EBBETS – like the old Ebbets Field where the Brooklyn Dodgers played – stands for Electronically Bringing Baseball Education To Students.

“We teach millions of kids a year through that program,” said Hall of Fame president Dale Petroskey. “So we are very serious about our educational mission here.”

But by far the most typical sights at the Hall of Fame, especially during the school year, are the yellow school buses that pull up in the morning, depositing loads of kids at the entrance. Many come as organized school groups who participate in the “America Grows Inning by Inning” program, which is made up of 10 modules that bring together science, art, history, math, geography, and other subjects.

That’s what brought fifth-grade teacher Catherine Alessandrini and her class to the Hall of Fame on a recent afternoon. Alessandrini, a teacher at Hughes Elementary School in New Hartford, N.Y., chaperoned a group studying the “Dirt on their Skirts” module about the history of women in baseball. Another year the school did the “Baseball Coast to Coast” module, which is about baseball’s spread through the country over the years.

“They get a parallel history lesson, so to speak,” Alessandrini said. “And [the Hall is] in our own area. To have this resource so close to us is great. Some of these kids have never been here before.”

What moves you

It might take a few minutes, or hours, or even days. But for baseball fans, it’s a guarantee that when you leave the Hall of Fame, you’ll look back on something you saw there and feel moved.

Almost everyone has a different piece of memorabilia that has moved them. One of those Sandy Koufax no-hitter balls would be cool to have (he threw four for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, so would the Hall of Fame really miss one?).

Bill Tribbett, who grew up in Sweetser, Ind., and now lives in Lakeland, Fla., has been a Yankees fan since he saw the movie “The Babe Ruth Story” in 1948. But he came to see the display for Ty Cobb, who played for the Detroit Tigers.

“There’s not that much of it because nobody liked him,” said Tribbett, who flew to New York to make his first Hall of Fame visit. “Everybody hated him. But his numbers are just astounding.”

Teacher Alessandrini is affected by the Roberto Clemente items, including a bat and his 1971 World Series ring. The Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Famer was killed in a plane crash at the age of 38.

“I get choked up when I see that exhibit,” she said. “It’s sad. But I’m a Mets fan, so I like to see all the Mets stuff, too.”

Or maybe the Pete Rose jersey gets you thinking. No, the Hit King isn’t enshrined, that’s because of his lifetime ban for gambling. But the Hall of Fame recognizes his contributions to baseball – including his 4,256 hits – in its timeline.

Louis and Anita Cicero of East Hampton, N.Y., came to see the Babe Ruth display and the Lou Gehrig items, but Louis Cicero has a connection to a Red Sox Hall of Famer. He played baseball against Carl Yastrzemski when the left fielder was a high schooler in Bridgehampton, N.Y.

“We played one year against him,” Cicero said. “He was a great basketball player, too. Outstanding. A great athlete. They slaughtered us, I tell you. But he was a great athlete.”

Hall of Fame president Dale Petroskey has a favorite piece. It’s the glove that Willie Mays used to make what’s become known as The Catch, a spectacular back-to-the-infield, on-the-run catch during the 1954 World Series between the New York Giants and Cleveland Indians.

It’s the glove’s back story that Petroskey appreciates. After he made the catch, Mays gave the glove to a clubhouse boy who didn’t have one for Little League. The boy used the glove for five years before giving it back to Mays.

“Today a lot of people would make a catch like that and put the glove away forever, but in those days it was just another glove to him and he let the kid play with it,” Petroskey said. “That chokes me up, not only because of the iconic image of Mays making the catch but what happened to the glove after that.”

Wiles’ favorite piece is currently on the “Baseball as America” tour. It’s a baseball – really just a couple of rocks wrapped with electrical tape – that Babe Ruth made as a youngster at St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore.

“It’s the essence of playing baseball as kids and it’s Babe Ruth,” Wiles said. “You have these two powerful ideas in baseball and this ball, and I don’t know how it gets better than that.”