Baseball Museum 17: Nolan Ryan Exhibit Center

On July 21, 2009, before going to the Astros game at Minute Maid Park we drove south of Houston to visit the Nolan Ryan Exhibit Center in Alvin, Texas. It is a small museum located kind of the middle of nowhere, but it was a very worthwhile detour. For one it was a way to waste time before the Astros night game. Secondly, the museum really tells the whole story of Nolan Ryan’s baseball career going as far back as his high school years playing in Alvin, Texas.

The exhibits are sort of organized in a semi circle arc like that of a ball field. The infield type area has a little theater with ballpark style seats with numbers related to Nolan Ryan’s career, such as his strikeouts, wins, etc. The next arc is kind of where the dirt infield usually ends and has pillars with various Nolan Ryan collectible memorabilia type stuff. The outer arc is like that of the outfield wall and is where the bulk of the exhibit space about Nolan Ryan is.

The exhibits that contain various Nolan Ryan memorabilia are sort of organized by type of memorabilia. The things on display include figurines, baseball cards, souvenir bats, souvenir baseballs, coins, and collectible postage stamp envelopes and cancellations.

The exhibits about Nolan Ryan go in chronological order. It has a timeline of his baseball career staring with high school. Each year has dates of highlight events, such as striking out a certain amount of batters, throwing low hit games, and his no hit games. Above the timelines is memorabilia related to that part of his career. Every few years along the line there is a video to watch about that time period in Nolan Ryan’s career. Mik really enjoyed watching the videos to learn more about Nolan Ryan.

The whole exhibit about his career was pretty interesting as it not only had a lot of information about Nolan Ryan, but it had a lot of related memorabilia. The other player museums we have been to either were somewhat limited in memorabilia, such as the small Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth ones, or limited memorabilia related to the specific player because the museum was not just about the player, but the team he played for, such as the Yogi Berra one. Both of those were great and worth visiting, but this one is unique in its amazing completeness.

Sure the Babe Ruth one had a little about his pre Major League Baseball career, but it was not much, especially since there really was not that much on display there overall. The Yogi Berra one did at least talk about his pre Major League Baseball career, but it did not have much in terms of items related to that part of his baseball career. The Ty Cobb Museum pretty much only had stuff related to his MLB career and after it. The Nolan Ryan Musuem in contrast gives has much space on its timeline to his college years as the other years in his baseball career.

There are some pretty interesting items on display as part of the timeline exhibit, such as Nolan’s original contract with the Mets and the scouting prospect card about Nolan Ryan. The coolest thing in my opinion is that they have balls from each of his no-hitter games (7) displayed along with the information about the game that includes the box score. They also have the ball was from his first career home run hit.

The final room of the museum is sort of a statistics room. It has a display with Nolan Ryan’s statistics with the Alvin Jackets. There is also a display that lists all the players he struck out and how many times he struck out each player. It is quite an impressive list with him being the strikeout leader with 5,714 strikeouts (note Randy Johnson in second is still at least 800 strikeouts away from that stat). This room also had several scorebooks of games Nolan Ryan pitched. The one interactive thing at this museum is also in this area and it is an interesting little video through a catcher’s mask that lets you get the feel of catching a Nolan Ryan pitch.

The exit to the museum has Nolan Ryan’s retired jersey’s hanging. His number has been retired at three of the four teams he has played for, so here is his #30 Angels jersey, #34 Astros jersey, and #34 Rangers jersey. There is also an exhibit about the Hall of Fame Class of 1999, which Nolan Ryan was part of being voted in to in his first year of eligibility. Lastly there is a display about pitchers that have gotten 300 wins. It is a little out of date, as Randy Johnson is not displayed, but he only made it to 300 this season. I also do not think Tom Glavine is displayed even though he did it back in 2007.

The Nolan Ryan Museum is my favorite baseball player museum we have visited. There is a surprising amount of items on display and it is all organized pretty good. Mik gives two thumbs up to the videos that tell about his life and his career throughout the museum. It was totally out of the way to visit before going to the Astros game since we were staying at a campground north of Houston, but it turned out to be a very worthwhile detour beyond just a way to waste time before the night game.

Game 28: Boston Red Sox 1 @ Texas Rangers 3

Today we drove up to Arlington, Texas from Houston. The KOA we are staying at here is very near the ballpark, so we set up camp before the game. We then headed to the game after a few hours relaxing in the lounge at the KOA.

We got to Rangers Park at Arlington about 45 minutes before it opened. We walked around a little outside before just getting in line to wait for the gates to open. It was a little crazy going into the park with a lot of kids there for Autograph Wednesdays and rushing to be in line for that. That and some little league tournament had a bunch of teams there.

After getting into the park we walked around a little and stopped at one of the team shops. We then ended up going up to the seats we had tickets for in section 344. We got to those and Mik was so disappointed in the view of right field being blocked. Other than that they seemed fine, but we did not end up staying there long because we ended up with another surprise upgrade.

We ended up sitting on the 3rd base side in section 18. The view of the field was way better and we also could see the scoreboard. We also got goodie bags that included Rangers ballcaps, Rangers batting helmets, autographed cards, stickers, magnet schedules, 2009-2010 calenders, and Rangers circle logo pennants.

The game was kind of long considering the rather minimal scoring, but it was a good game with the home team Rangers winning. The Red Sox took the lead first with their one and only run, which was a home run in the top of the 3rd. The Rangers tied it up with a homer in the bottom of the 3rd. They got the lead with two runs scored in the bottom of the 4th and then that was the end of the scoring plays in the game. One of the most interesting plays, though occurred in the bottom of the 5th when one of the Rangers got out because he was hit by the ball his teammate hit while avoiding his teammate's broken bat. Mik was happy to see Papelbon come on and pitch an inning for the Red Sox.

Overall an enjoyable game experience. There sure were a lot of Red Sox fans, but the Rangers fans were still obviously there and cheering for their team, which does not always happen when teams like the Red Sox play. The hot humidity of Arlington is not as bad as Houston, but boy is the Astros park much more comfortable with it's AC. At least the Rangers Park does have it's own uniqueness with the feel of old ballpark architecture that is helped by the lack of a massive jumbotron. Sure they have a decent scoreboard, but it only has a small part of it is a screen for the video stuff and they keep the bottom as the box score all the time.

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Smashed Pennies: National Museum of American History

At the National Museum of American History Mik and I each got a smashed penny. The designs seem to be the same as they always were, but the machine is one of the newer ones that cost $1 per penny. The one I got says National Museum of American History Kenneth E. Behring Center and has an image of the museum building. Mik chose the Spark Lab one that says National Museum of American History Lemelson Center.

Day 60: National Museum of American History

Before going to the Nationals game on July 18, 2009, we took the Metro into D.C. and visited the National Museum of American History. This is my favorite museum in D.C. and I have not seen it in over 3 years due to it being closed and this being my first time in D.C. since it reopened. I thought we were going to end up skipping it since we changed the plans and stayed in Atlanta an extra day to see the Maddux Number Retirement Ceremony. However, we got to the D.C. area, set up camp, and still had several hours to waste before the Nats game. Also, since I had been to Nationals Park a lot we did not have to worry about getting there early because I knew where we were going and that there is not really anything to see outside the park.

It was a Saturday and it is the summer, so it ended up being very crowded, so we did not really get to see much. We did wait in line to see the new way they display the Star Spangled Banner, which is really well done. It was also oddly the shortest line to wait in to see an exhibit. The only other exhibit we got to was the Philadelphia Gunboat. I had wanted to also see the Popular Culture exhibit, but there was a long line just to get into the exhibit. I had never seen it to ridiculous before and honestly I think the remodel has caused these line issues because the exhibits are now more connected with less general hallway space in between. That and it having been closed for so long and it being the first summer reopened probably added to their being more people visiting.

Anyways it was sadly not as enjoyable as I had thought it would be. We ended up leaving after less than an hour because there was no way to see anything and still get out of there to the Metro and then the game. Thus we wasted time by walking the National Mall to get to the green line at L’Enfant Plaza and go to the game instead of getting on the closest stop and having to transfer at L’Enfant Plaza, which can be an annoying multi elevator thing.