Since assuming his position in 1999, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum President Dale Petroskey and his team have been on a mission to bring his nonprofit enterprise to the millions of baseball fans who either can't find the time or don't have the resources to travel to baseball history's home plate in isolated Cooperstown, New York.
Petroskey and his 90 full-time staff members have effectively executed their outreach gameplan, and beginning on Sept. 28, Dallas becomes the 13th major American city to host "Baseball As America," an exhibit featuring 500 of the museum's most important artifacts. The exhibit opens at the Museum of Nature & Science in Dallas at Fair Park, where it will remain through Jan. 13, 2008. The opportunity to see the traveling road show from Cooperstown is sponsored nationally by Ernst & Young, and locally by Turner Construction, AT&T, the State Fair of Texas and the Texas Rangers baseball team.
The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's comprehensive strategy for fulfilling its mission of "preserving history, honoring excellence and connecting generations" could serve as a blueprint for any business and has caused it to be recognized as the undisputed leader in its field. Its induction ceremony in the rural Leatherstocking region of New York two months ago attracted 75,000 people, compared to the 14,000 drawn by its football counterpart in Canton, Ohio, in early August.
Petroskey and his Cooperstown team have been so successful that last November Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business had him as a featured speaker.
Here are a few reasons, in no particular order, for his success:
- Empowered by technology in Thomas Friedman's "flat world," the Hall has been at the forefront of providing innovative educational programs via the Internet, using baseball as a mechanism for teaching physics, math and social studies, through the vehicle of videoconferences and Electronic Field Trips that have succeeded in engaging 20 million classroom students in one day. These cutting-edge efforts have attracted the financial support of the U.S. Department of Education, The New York Times, HarperCollins Children's Books and the American Library Association.
- In a culturally diverse world, the Hall emphasizes diversity throughout its programming. In the past three years, it has featured separate major exhibits on the role of women and African-Americans in baseball.
- Given that its 62 living Hall of Famers are the museum's best ambassadors, it has given them opportunities to connect to fans outside the crass commercialism of card show autograph signings, and created golf events (in Detroit and Dallas), fantasy camps (in Cooperstown) and networking appearances at each stop of the "Baseball As America" exhibit tour. On Sept. 26, Jim Palmer, George Brett, Ozzie Smith, Billy Williams and Fergie Jenkins mingled with guests at the big sponsors' party, and other Hall of Famers will speak to fans later in the show as part of the speakers' series sponsored by Wachovia Bank, the Cox Smith Matthew Inc. law firm and local businessman Rex Jennings.
- Never resting on its past, in 2005, the Hall completed a three-year expansion and renovation program that added 10,000 square feet to the museum, opening or updating 14 new exhibit and programming spaces that contain more interactive technology and hands-on activities. n Knowing no venture can succeed without sufficient capital, the Hall has grown its members' programs to 30,000 dues-paying fans, succeeded in attracting the support of hundreds of wealthy individuals and foundations to build a sizable endowment, and succeeded in getting major companies and professional service firms to become its corporate sponsors.
North Texas residents should make every effort to get to the Museum of Nature & Science in Fair Park during the next three months, not only to go back in time to see Jackie Robinson's uniform and Babe Ruth's bat, but also to witness an example of a well-executed business gameplan clicking on all cylinders in 2007.
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