On 29 January 1936, in a small upstate New York village called Cooperstown, the leaders of Major League Baseball announced the very first members of a brand-new Baseball Hall of Fame. They had received ballots from 226 baseball writers. To get in, a player needed to appear on at least 75 percent of the ballots. Only five names made the cut - and they became known forever as the 'Original Five.'
The biggest of them was Babe Ruth, the home-run king who had once hit 60 in a single season and could also pitch like a star. Ty Cobb, the fierce hitter with a .366 lifetime batting average, actually got more votes than Babe. The other three were Honus Wagner, a graceful shortstop; Christy Mathewson, an old-school pitcher who had been killed by a wartime gas illness; and Walter Johnson, a quiet fireballer nicknamed 'The Big Train.' The Hall would not actually open its doors as a real museum until 1939.
Today the Baseball Hall of Fame is a beautiful brick building in Cooperstown filled with old gloves, dusty bats, jerseys, and Babe Ruth's giant leather cap. Around 350,000 fans visit each year. Every summer a new class of legends is inducted on a grassy field outside town, with players from past decades sitting in folding chairs in their gold-coloured Hall of Fame jackets. Getting your bronze plaque on that wall remains the highest honour in American baseball - a tradition that began with five names and 226 ballots in 1936.
