Cooperstown, New York is home to three major galleries where visitors can visit and view artifacts. And while the Farmer’s Museum and the Fenimore Art Museum are undoubtedly both fascinating, the reason my two sons and I went there during the recently-completed school vacation was identical to that of 98 percent of Cooperstown’s other visitors: We wanted to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

There is simply no quick or easy way to arrive in Cooperstown. Getting there from Biddeford requires a solid five hours, or more if the driver(s) don’t want to take a chance of picking up a speeding ticket in any of four different states en route.

All risks aside: If the trip took five days it would still be worth it.

The Hall of Fame is a vibrant, busy place between Memorial Day and mid-October. However, those who schedule a 42-hour visit for the middle of April can easily pretend they have it to themselves, particularly when the skies are grey, intermittent snow is falling, and the temperature is hovering in the low 30s. Those were the precise conditions when our party descended into the bucolic village on Otsego Lake’s south shore in the middle of a weekday afternoon two weeks ago.

Forget the cold, the snow, and the fact half the Main Street stores were still closed for the winter. Cooperstown in general and the Hall of Fame in particular is Heaven on Earth for baseball fans of all ages.

After locating the inn where we had secured overnight accommodations the boys and I walked all of 400 yards or so to the Hall, where we took a cursory look around the first floor and bought tickets giving us admission to the entire museum for both the remainder of the afternoon and all of the following day. When the place closed at five o’clock we walked around town, took a few pictures, got dinner at a memorably-named Chinese restaurant, and went to bed at a reasonable hour.

The next day we arrived when the Hall’s doors opened at 9 a.m. It would have required far more time than we had to adequately take in all that the shrine contains.

There are numerous displays highlighting the history of storied teams like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, lots of artifacts celebrating the careers of famous players like Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron, and several attics worth of other National-Pastime-related ephemera. Want to see the hat Ken Johnson of the Houston Colt 45’s wore on April 23, 1964, the night he lost to the Cincinnati Reds despite pitching a no-hitter against them? It’s there.

For more casual fans there are fascinating exhibits concerning women in baseball, the Latin-American influence on the game, the promotional trip around the world a group of major league players took during the winter of 1888-89, and the “Negro Leagues” that existed not just until the Brooklyn Dodgers were integrated in 1947, but for more than a decade afterward.

On the way back to our lodgings we stopped at one of the many Cooperstown shops which peddle baseball memorabilia, and while neither I or my boys had any interest in parting with over $100 to purchase a replica jersey of any current major league players, we did invest in some 1953 Topps Archives baseball cards, which were selling at 50 cents per 12-card, unopened pack. We opened them back at the hotel, and the kids liked them so much I went back the next morning right before leaving town and bought the few they had left. Later that day for a few fleeting moments my sons and I went back in time together, eagerly tearing open ten packages of baseball cards to see who we’d be adding to our collection. The intangible feelings I got were the same ones I did when I was their age: Elation when a Willie Mays, Yogi Berra, or Bob Feller was revealed, but disappointment when, hoping for a Jackie Robinson or Mickey Mantle, we pulled yet another duplicate Al Zarilla, Faye Throneberry, or Clyde Vollmer.

Each of us bought one small, tangible souvenir, but the most precious things we took home from our trip were unique memories each of us will treasure for the remainder of our Earthly days, which I hope will last even longer than my 1969 Seattle Pilots hat does.

— Teacher, freelance writer and baseball fan Andy Young would like readers to know that the name of Cooperstown’s only Chinese restaurant is Foo Kin John’s. Really.