Take me out to the ball game; make your next vacation a grand slam - Baseball Vacations

FanFest features priceless artifacts from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and autograph sessions with former stars, plus trivia games, batting cages, baseball clinics with retired pros, and a chance to do a video voiceover of a memorable moment in baseball history. We chose to narrate Hank Aaron's record-breaking 715th career home run. The video was ours to keep. And we came home with loads of free posters, pins, and trinkets.

Appearing in Milwaukee for free autographs were players I hadn't seen in 40 years--legends like Minnie Minoso, Don Larsen, Harmon Killebrew, and Robin Roberts. Dozens of memorabilia vendors peddled their wares, from rare trading cards and new bobble-head dolls to signed balls, jerseys, and photos priced at hundreds, even thousands, of dollars.

Rawlings craftsmen demonstrated the making of major league bats and baseballs. Stage entertainment, prize raffles, live radio broadcasts, and a display of trophies (Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player, Golden Glove) rounded out the jam-packed agenda. We spent at least four hours soaking it all .in at downtown Milwaukee's Midwest Express Center.

St. Louis, an avid baseball town, is another major league city within driving distance for us. Wear red at Busch Stadium, and you'll fit right in. Across the street, pay tribute to players like Stan Musial, Ozzie Smith, and Mark McGwire at the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame, which shares a building with the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame. Nearby are the Gateway Arch and Mississippi riverfront. A new ballpark, slated to open in 2005, will anchor a Ballpark Village with restaurants, residences, a world-class aquarium, and new Cardinals Hall of Fame.

Baltimore also has a baseball shrine close to its ballpark. Before or after a game or tour at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, make a pilgrimage to the Babe Ruth Birthplace, a two-story rowhouse where the "Bambino" was born in 1895. Ruth's father operated a bar in what is now the outfield of Oriole Park. Not far away are the museums, shops, and cruise boats of Baltimore's tourist-friendly Inner Harbor.

The game's most revered shrine draws fans to Cooperstown, an idyllic town in upstate New York. Here is the National Baseball Hall of Fame, where a gallery with more than 250 bronze plaques honors the sport's elite. Displays showcase antique gear, bats and balls associated with significant players, and thousands of other artifacts, such as Joe DiMaggio's locker and seats from Brooklyn's Ebbets Field. Exhibits also spotlight contributions made by women and African-Americans. The ceremony for this year's inductees--Gary Carter and Eddie Murray--takes place July 27 at Clark Sports Center during Hall of Fame Weekend; it's free and open to the public.

A block from the museum is historic Doubleday Field, the site of a former cow pasture where legend says Abner Doubleday in 1839 invented the modern game of baseball.

For those who cannot travel to Cooperstown, the Baseball Hall of Fame is taking some of its treasures on the road. "Baseball as America" the first major exhibition to examine the relationship between baseball and American culture, will be at The Field Museum in Chicago until July 20. The national tour continues on to the Cincinnati Museum Center (August 16 to November 9), then to St. Petersburg, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, and Houston over the next two years.