My wife and I made the Cooperstown
hajj in October 2007. The trees were in their autumn beauty (apologies to Yeats) and nobody was there, it's too crowded (apologies to Berra). Translation: we had the town in its fall splendour and the HoF virtually to ourselves. If you can swing it, the Otesaga is the place to stay. Its nineteenth century class and its exquisite setting on the lake make the price worth it; they might even be running deals on rooms this time of year. One bonus: rates include a not-to-be-believed buffet breakfast. We spent six happy days at the Otesaga and we still get all woozy reminiscing about our time there. Even if you stay elsewhere be sure to drop by the hotel just to check it out. The Inn at Cooperstown looked like a grand place to stay as well.
As for restaurants we took most of our meals at the hotel but there was a deli on Main Street we ate lunch at named Danny's Market that served up righteous sandwiches and pastries.
Baseball card shops? Tons of them, way too many, all selling what appeared to be the same
ersatz memorabilia. Cooperstown is the ultimate quaint American small town except for the fact that the locals have to drive over to Mt Pilot or wherever to go to a movie or a hardware store or a decent supermarket, probably because they've been displaced by these "card" shops. Best place I found was The National Pastime which was a shop the size of a small barn loaded to the rafters with old time baseball
shmata, all way overpriced but a total gas to wander through. Alas, word has it they closed up for good a year or so ago anyway.
Other attractions: Of course there is Doubleday Field just around the corner from the HoF. Can't forget that. Aside from that I don't know of any other specific baseball attractions. The Hall of Fame will take care of that nicely. There are two other museums nearby, just a three minute pop up the lake from town. First is the Fenimore Art Museum. It's a smallish museum, you can give it a quick honest once-over in 90 minutes. Great colonial art, an extensive American Indian exhibit, also a collection of very interesting life masks cast from the actual faces of Thomas Jefferson, Dolly Madison etc. The Farmers Museum is a sprawl of colonial era buildings and a collection of old time farm inplements. My wife grew up on a farm so she thought it was terrific. I, on the other hand, grew up thinking corn came from a can but even so I found the Farmers Msm to be very interesting and worth a visit. If you're just going to be in C'town for a couple of days I would forget the foregoing and spend every possible minute at the Hall of Fame.
Have fun!
