The Tour for the Cure left Scranton very early on Tuesday morning and headed to see the Oneonta Tigers take on the Aberdeen Ironbirds at Doubleday Field. The Tigers normally play their games about 30 minutes away at Damaschke Field but today they were scheduled to play Cal Ripken’s minor league team so the game was moved to Doubleday Field in Cooperstown. By 10:30am, the town was buzzing and parking was scarce. I ended up parking in someone’s backyard for $20, relatively cheap compared to the $40 and $50 parking fees charged in order to park in someone else’s front yard closer to the center of town. It was reported that this year was to be Cooperstown’s biggest year yet, drawing some 60,000 fans over the course of a weekend to see Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn get inducted to the Hall of Fame.

What you might not know is that this weekend is also huge for former HOF players and other baseball legends—for signing autographs. There were over 40 HOFers on hand to sign autographs for fans coming from all over the country. Most of the prices for autographs started at $50 for a ball, and could be as much as $150 to $200 for a signed bat (which you had to provide yourself.) Some of the players I saw included: Yogi Berra, Al Kaline, Dave Winfield, Ozzie Smith, Rollie Fingers, Willie Mays (charging $125 for a ball), Mike Schmidt and even Pete Rose. Yes, even though Pete Rose is banned from the HOF, he will still sign autographs a block away for $60 a pop. In order to get autographs, you had to buy a ticket from the store where the player was, and then wait in line for sometimes as long as two hours just to actually get the autograph. Crazy.

As for the game, the stadium was packed with Orioles fans (no shock there) and Cal Ripken and his family made a special guest appearance to throw out the first pitch. Here is the video of Cal and his family at Doubleday Field:

After leaving Cooperstown, the Tour for the Cure headed up to Troy to see the Tri-City Valley Cats. In case you were wondering, the three cities that comprise of the “tri-” are: Albany, Schenectady and Troy. The Valley Cats play at Joseph L. Bruno stadium, which is named after the New York Senate majority leader who secured the funding that was needed for the construction of the ballpark. Tomorrow—another doubleheader in New York state.