Knocking it out of the park
Museum of Science exhibit puts baseball technology in the hands of the fans
Usually, there's just one Green Line stop baseball fans care about, Kenmore. This summer there'll be two. Science Park will be the station for fans to go to when there aren't any games at Fenway. "Baseball as America," an exhibit organized by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, in Cooperstown, N.Y., will be at the Museum of Science from June 15 through Sept. 1.
"I'm thrilled," Paul Fontaine, the museum's vice president for programs, said in a telephone interview last week. "There are a lot of baseball fans in Boston, and to be able to bring an exhibit from the Hall of Fame to maybe America's most passionate baseball town is exciting for the science museum."
The show, which has been touring nationally since 2002, includes some 500 items from the hall's collection. They range from Jackie Robinson's uniform jersey to the first catcher's mask. (Yes, there was a time when catchers went maskless.)
Asked to name his own favorite artifacts in the show, Fontaine didn't hesitate. "The Honus Wagner trading card: It's kind of the Holy Grail of baseball cards," he said, referring to a card showing the famed Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop (one in mint condition sold last year for $2.8 million). "At the other end of the spectrum is Curt Schilling's bloody sock from the [2004] World Series. That's iconic in a different way."
In showing the exhibit, the museum saw a need to make its own contribution. As a result, 50 percent of the "Baseball as America" gallery space will be devoted to what the museum is calling its Home Plate Baseball Lab.
"We could have just hosted the exhibit and opened the doors," Fontaine said. "But because of the science museum's mission we wanted to focus on the science and technology aspect. So it's taken us about 18 months to build these prototypes and components."
Museumgoers can have their pitches clocked by a radar gun. They can roll baseballs over the various grasses and other surfaces found at Fenway Park. They can stand at the plate and have a pitching machine throw 95-mph fastballs at them (they don't get to swing bats at them, though). There will be a display on medical aspects of the game, with a special focus on common injuries among Little League and high school-age players. Other displays focus on equipment: bats, gloves, and the like.
All this, Fontaine said, "allows us to capture people's excitement about the game, the players, the whole environment of baseball, then leverage that excitement to show how science and technology have affected the game: to give them a different lens for seeing the game."
June 15-Sept. 1, Museum of Science, 617-723-2500, mos.org
Mark Feeney can be reached at mfeeney@globe.com. 