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A post-season pilgrimage for baseball fans
[Times files: Ron Thompson 1998]
Ted Williams Museum visitor Mabel Payne looks over a series of letters. |
By WILMA NORTON
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 28, 2000
If you're a Devil Rays fan (or a Cubs, Phillies, Orioles or Tigers fan, for that matter), your baseball season is coming to an abrupt end.
There will be no playoffs or World Series this year for those teams.
So this may be the perfect time to visit the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame in the town of Hernando in Citrus County, the time to relive baseball heroes' past glory and dream of future grandeur.
Williams, one of the game's greatest hitters and the last man to bat over .400 in a season, lives in Citrus County. The museum, which opened more than six years ago and already has expanded, pays homage to his illustrious career. He hit .406 in 1941 and was a lifetime .344 hitter. He won the American League batting championship six times in 19 seasons. He won the Triple Crown twice, leading the major leagues in batting average, home runs and RBI in 1942 and '47.
But the museum honors more than the 82-year-old Williams, who was known as the Splendid Splinter.
It is a collection of memorabilia of other great players, too, much of it donated by fans: scrapbooks, clippings and photos, a library filled with baseball books, computer reference materials.
Each February, Williams inducts several players into his own little Cooperstown, his Hitter's Hall of Fame. That wing of the museum pays tribute to those Williams considers among the game's elite.
Dozens of baseball greats show up at the museum each year for the ceremonies.
The 2000 inductees were Yogi Berra, Al Kaline, Sadaharu Oh, Willie Stargell and Carl Yastrzemski. Past inductees include Reggie Jackson, Mike Piazza, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Mo Vaughn, Mark McGwire, Josh Gibson, Chuck Klein, Harmon Killebrew, Willie McCovey and Duke Snider.
If you go:
The Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame is at 2455 N Citrus Hills Blvd., Hernando. That's just off County Road 486, about 3 miles west of U.S. 41, in Citrus County. The museum is about 80 miles north of Tampa. (352) 527-6566. Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tue.-Sun. Closed Monday. Admission: $5 adults, $1 children younger than 12.
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