Cooperstown Mourns Last Witness to Cubs 1908 Victory
Wilson Cooper the former greatest exhibit in the Baseball Hall of Fame
COOPERSTOWN – The Baseball Hall of Fame was draped in black this past Wednesday in memory of Wilson Cooper, one of the Hall’s most popular exhibits: the last surviving witness to the Chicago Cubs 1908 World Series victory.
Cooper was just eight months old in 1908, when his father dragged him out of his crib on the Chicago’s Westside, where the Cubs played before the move to their new ballpark, Wrigley Field. Cooper stopped crying to watch as the dynamic double-play combination of Tinker to Evers to Chance, and the wizardry of Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown led the Cubs to their final triumph.
“I don’t remember anything from when I was eight months old,” said Janice Cooper, Cooper’s great-grand daughter, “but Papi remembered exactly how it happened.”
Cooper often regaled Cooperstown tourists with tales of Sammy Sosa and Milton Bradley leading the Cubs to victory against the now defunct New York Cross-Dressers.
“Slammin’ Sammy could sure pitch, and the leading homerun hitter for the Cross-Dressers, “Diamond Joe” Koufax was quite a looker,” Cooper recalled in an interview with Ken Burns for his documentary, “Baseball.”
While the Cooper family had been expecting his death for sometime, the Baseball Hall of Fame was at a loss. “It’s not everyday that you lose your best exhibit,” said Tom York, lead curator for the Hall.
The Hall of Fame placed Cooper behind glass in the late 1980s when it was officially confirmed that he was the last surviving witness to the now historic game. Janice recalled that day quite vividly. “A couple of guys showed up in a U-Haul trailer and took Papi away. I asked my mom about it, and she said they were taking Papi to the Hall of Fame.”
Marcus Russell, the director of the Hall, held back tears as he spoke to the media.
“This is the greatest tragedy to hit the Hall since 1967 when three hoodlums made off with Eddie Gaedel.”
Under pressure to “spice-up” the stale game, the Hall is constantly trying to revamp, and now faced with the loss of its most popular exhibit, its curators are going to have to be more inventive to entertain a younger generation of fans.
“Our first thought was to finally build the ‘Babe Ruth: Hotdogs and Beer, the Real Breakfast of Champions’ exhibit, but we’re open to any ideas,” said York.
The loss of revenue that the Hall could face due to Cooper’s death is enormous, and leads many to believe that the Hall may eventually enable players like Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds to be enshrined. Russell remains firmly in opposition. “We aren’t ever going to let steroid-users into the Hall.”
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