Cooperstown, a small village in central New York that’s home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the legacy of 19th century writer James Fenimore Cooper (his famous Leatherstocking Tales include “The Last of the Mohicans”), is one of the most American places in the country.

Nestled in a bucolic paradise of farmland with rolling hills and mirror-like lakes, the village is like a movie set for a romanticized ideal of small-town American life. Mint-condition 19th century homes like life-size dollhouses surround a Main Street that is three blocks long, punctuated only by a single stoplight and a tall flagpole, and often filled with kids and dads in baseball caps doing Norman Rockwell things like eating ice cream or playing catch.

The village of 1,800 is the most-visited in America, luring more than 400,000 people each year. Summer is the height of tourism season—thanks to induction weekend at the National Baseball Hall of Fame (July 19-22 this year), two popular baseball tournament camps for players 12 and younger, lake activities, and the renowned Glimmerglass Festival of opera and musical theater.

Here, we break down must-see sights, where to stay, and what to do during a visit to the idyllic destination—which is about an hour drive from the Albany airport and a five-hour drive from Baltimore.

Baseball Galore

A reverence for the romanticism of baseball reaches fever pitch at The National Baseball Hall of Fame, which attracts legions of sports lovers more than willing to make the pilgrimage to the somewhat secluded village.

Joining the ranks of the very exclusive club of inductees at this year’s ceremony on Sunday, July 21, are three former Baltimore Orioles. Perhaps most notably is pitcher Mike Mussina, who split his career between the Orioles and the Yankees. Also being inducted are one-time Orioles Harold Baines (an Easton native) and Lee Smith. The other inductees in this year’s class are game greats Roy Halladay, Edgar Martinez, and Mariano Rivera.

An interview with Cal Ripken Jr.—whose 2007 induction attracted the largest crowd—opens the short film “The Baseball Experience” shown every half hour in the second floor Grandstand Theater, where the Hall recommends visitors start their experience. He tears up talking about the honor of following in the footsteps of greats like Lou Gehrig, and by the end of the 15-minute movie, it’s hard not to also be inspired by the beauty of the game.

Areas of interest for Orioles fans include a modern-day locker with artifacts like Chris Davis’ baseball cap from 2017 and Matt Wieters’ mitt. Camden Yards is highlighted as breaking the stadium mold by inspiring a trend in retro design for ballparks, and record-breakers like Eddie Murray, Brooks Robinson, and Ripken Jr. are featured. Babe Ruth’s Baltimore beginnings are explained in his exhibit.

The Hall is at the far end of Main Street, which is packed with more baseball souvenir shops than you can dream of. If you can’t find a jersey, hat, or Lego version of your favorite baseball player, you’re not searching hard enough. Check out Mickey’s Place, which carries caps with many of the Orioles’ logos throughout the team’s 118-year history, as well as Negro League and Minor League baseball team caps.

History and Culture

References are everywhere to Cooper’s five novels that make up the Leatherstocking Tales, which are set in the author’s native Cooperstown. His father, a judge from New Jersey, founded the village in 1789. Various nods to the books are apparent around town, including Glimmerglass, the name Cooper gives Otsego Lake in the books.

Between July and August, the Glimmerglass Festival, with a campus on Otsego Lake about 10 miles from the village, presents the most performances of any opera company other than the Metropolitan Opera. It attracts emerging and established artists from all over the country.

This season includes hits like La Traviata and Show Boat, as well as Blue, a world premiere opera by Broadway music hitmaker Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home, Caroline or Change, Shrek the Musical) and librettist and director Tazewell Thompson—who has recently directed plays at Everyman Theatre, as well as dozens of shows in Arena Stage and other D.C. playhouses. Blue, about a modern-day, middle-class black couple whose teenage son is killed by a white police officer, will be presented in 2020 at the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center, whose artistic director, Francesca Zambello, is also the artistic director of Glimmerglass.

In addition to opera and musical theater, this year’s festival includes speakers such as Baltimore native Ta-Nehisi Coates and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has been speaking at the event about her love of opera and her perspective on law in the arts since 2011. Her event has been sold out since January, with a 15-page waiting list.

The Fenimore Art Museum is another must-stop for art and history lovers. With nearly 900 objects in the Thaw Collection, the museum houses one of the largest collections of American Indian art and artifacts. It is also noted for its impressive collection of American folk art, which began with gifts from Stephen C. Clark—a founding member of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and heir to the Singer Manufacturing Co. Clark was also responsible for establishing the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Across from The Fenimore is the Farmers’ Museum, which Clark founded shortly after the creation of the Hall of Fame as a living history museum inspired by genre paintings depicting 19th century American farm life. Here, visitors can witness a blacksmith making an anvil in the historic village or take a ride on the vintage Empire State Carousel.

Where to Stay and Play

Seemingly captured in time is the lakefront colonial-style grand dame of a luxury resort hotel, The Otesaga—which, like Cooperstown, hasn’t changed much since its opening in 1909. The hotel maintains an early 20th century nostalgia thanks to impeccable décor. It offers activities like tennis, boating and golf (on the property is the picturesque Leatherstocking Golf Course). To stay closer to nature, check out a selection of glamping sites on the lake and in the woods. Like many quaint towns in the country, Cooperstown has a wealth of bed and breakfasts. Cooperstown Lakeview Lodge offers log cabin-styled suites right on Otsego Lake with amenities like fireplaces and a jacuzzi.

It’s also possible to rent an entire house on the lake. Cooperstown Luxury and Cooperstown Stay list weeklong and nightly full home rentals on Otsego Lake, as well as nearby Canadarago and Goodyear lakes, each of which are about 20 minutes from the village. The lakes are a major part of life in and around Cooperstown, and will make your Instagram followers envious. (Search #OtsegoLake and drool.) Boat, kayak and other water crafts can be rented at Sam Smith Boatyard and Canoe and Kayak Rental and Sales.

Where to Eat and Drink

At the seasonal Origins Cafe just out of town, diners can savor vegan dishes or paninis with chicken and beef from local farms in a greenhouse surrounded by flowers and plants native to New York. Serving inventive and homey dishes like grilled pork loin with rhubarb peach chutney in the first-floor of a Victorian-style house, Rose and Kettle in nearby Cherry Valley is a favorite for opera goers. Another well-loved spot is Alex’s World Bistro, which embraces a global menu with options like a banh mi sandwich, Egyptian falafel, and Thai duck red curry.

One of the best options to take full advantage of the postcard views of Otsego Lake is the Hawkeye Bar and Grill at the Otesaga Resort Hotel. The Hawkeye—with a consistently solid menu of elevated casual dining items like fish tacos, meatloaf and burgers—has an outdoor patio overlooking the lake, as well as the Fire Bar, popular with locals and tourists. The dining porches at the Blue Mingo Grill, located at Sam Smith’s Boatyard, is one of the only spots where you can dine directly on the lake. It’s a favorite for lunch, with a range of salad and sandwich options—including a respectable crab cake.

This area of upstate New York once produced 85 percent of the hops for the country’s beer. That legacy continues with several breweries that can be visited on the Cooperstown Beverage Trail. You can collect a pint glass for visiting all nine locations on the trail, which include wineries, a cider mill, and a distillery. The Duvel-owned Brewery Ommegang produces Belgium-style ale that is distributed in 48 states. The brewery is like an amusement park for beer lovers, with tours, tastings, a gift shop, weekly live entertainment, an outdoor bar, and a 200-seat cafe that’s family friendly with corn hole and other lawn games.

Less than a mile away from Ommegang is Red Shed Brewery, which has ample outdoor seating and is committed to using New York State hops and grains. About a five-minute drive from both breweries, in nearby Milford, is the Cooperstown Brewing Company. Located in a former creamery behind antique Delaware and Hudson Railroad cars (which are still in service for special events, including the weekly live music cruise Cooperstown Blues Express), it serves a line of sodas and serves ice cream floats—including an alcoholic version with the Benchwarmer Porter. The company also has a variety of baseball-themed beers like the Bambino American Amber Ale, which it created with Babe Ruth’s grandchildren. Though you might be five hours from our own shrine to the Sultan of Swat, sipping the beer—much like visiting the Orioles exhibits at the Hall of Fame—serves as a nice reminder of home.

Mike Mussina, now 50 years old with gray in his goatee, was just finishing coaching a practice of his son’s high school basketball team Tuesday night in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, when his phone rang. The voice on the other end delivered the good news. In Mussina’s sixth year on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, the former Orioles and Yankees pitcher was finally chosen to be enshrined among the game’s greats in Cooperstown.

Once he shrugged off the bit of surprise, left the gym, and texted his wife and oldest son at college to let them know, Mussina soon spoke by phone to commentators on the MLB Network about the honor and how he earned it, via a remarkably consistent career marked by at least 15 wins in 11 0f his 18 pro seasons, which looks even better in hindsight given the performance-enhancing drugs era he pitched in.

“Moose,” as crowds often bellowed in praise, played his first 10 years with the O’s, making the All-Star game five times and winning 147 games before he chose to sign as a free agent in 2000 with the team in pinstripes. Mussina played his final eight seasons in New York, winning another 123 games, yet never captured the elusive championship he sought, though he did reach the World Series in 2001 and 2003 and won 20 games in his final year before retiring in 2008.

All this background begs a relatively innocuous, some might say even silly, question. But given our allegiances and the history at hand, it’s rather timely and important: Which logo will Mussina, or more precisely, his bronze bust likeness, wear on his cap when he is enshrined in the Hall of Fame Museum this August in upstate New York?

There can only be one. None is an option, too. Either way, the Hall of Fame’s crack research staff tries to decide where the player “made his most indelible mark,” Baseball Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson has said. Importantly, officials also get input from the subject himself, but to hear Mussina speak about it, they won’t get much help from him. He’s torn, and open to suggestions.

“Both places were huge factors in my career,” he told reporters in New York on Wednesday. “[You have] the place you start, the team that drafts you, brings you to the major leagues, and gives you an opportunity, and an organization like the New York Yankees, it’s a tough decision. I’m going to need some guidance, some help—opinions, options, whatever they are—to ultimately make that decision.”

If you ask us, it’s a pretty clear case. We want a big O’s logo or an Oriole bird on his hat, no questions asked.

The Yankees have had plenty of extravagantly paid, glitzy stars, but Mussina will be the first Baltimore pitcher to go into the HOF since Jim Palmer in 1990. He was homegrown talent, twice drafted by the Orioles (first out of high school and then out of Stanford) and grew into the team’s best pitcher of the last 30 years. A right-hander with precision control who got by at times with a knuckle curveball, he always seemed to finish his throwing motion in exactly the same position—that damn right leg landing in the identical spot off the mound.

His 15 strikeouts against Cleveland in one game of the 1997 American League Championship Series are legendary. That came after he famously out-dueled Randy Johnson at Camden Yards in the series-clincher the round before. And, for crying out loud, Mussina was the winning pitcher the night Cal Ripken, Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive-games-played streak.

He won more games as an Oriole than a Yankee, made more All-Star teams, threw 456 more innings, and had a slightly better earned run average while wearing No. 35 in an orange and white uniform. Do we need more?

It’d be case closed if Mussina finished his career here. But that didn’t happen. Still, we can forgive him for bolting to the Yankees after Orioles management skimped on a hefty long-term contract extension for the team’s ace after the spectacular 1997 season in which the O’s led the AL East from start to finish. Three years later, when Mussina, then 32, was the most sought-after free-agent in baseball, the Yankees and manager Joe Torre courted him in the days after they won the 2000 World Series, and outbid the O’s by one year and almost $30 million while promising deep postseason runs. That’s a hard deal to turn down.

But now it’s time for Mussina to be remembered for where he started. The Orioles already inducted him to the team’s Hall of Fame in 2012. It would feel just plain weird if Mussina’s cap bears an interlocking NY in the most beloved Hall of all, yet his number is retired at Camden Yards, as it should, or a statue of his windup joins the six other larger-then-life guys beyond centerfield, as it could.

Reading between the lines, “I almost split my career down the middle between the two organizations,” Mussina said, he might be angling for the no-logo option. That’d be better than the other alternative. But Moose, if you see this, Baltimore wants the hat.