ExtremeRavens Posted July 18 Posted July 18 The Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum is a short walk from Camden Yards along a path of baseballs painted on the sidewalk. The trail leads visitors from the gates of the Orioles’ ballpark to the doorstep of the institution, tucked away in the cobblestone streets of Pigtown and surrounded by lines of rowhouses. The quaint and historic building where perhaps the greatest baseball player ever was born has been a constant in the Baltimore sports ecosystem for a half-century. It’s served as home to some of the area’s most valuable sports artifacts, drawing out-of-town and local fans alike. Museum directors say they want it to be more. The Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum will celebrate its 50th anniversary Friday, a chance to honor its past and look to the future. The nonprofit museum has faced challenges with expansion before, and Executive Director Shawn Herne and Director Emeritus Michael Gibbons say it faces new problems now. But with innovative plans on the horizon that won’t sacrifice its history, the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum aims to further cement itself as a Baltimore staple. “Most of us relied on that fifth grade field trip,” Herne said of cultural attractions. “They don’t happen anymore. Museums are going to have to adapt. They’re going to have to change or they’re going to go out of business.” The museum will unveil a new display at its Emory Street location for its anniversary. Among the artifacts that will be shown are the trophy Ruth received for his Player of the Century Award, a program from the game in which he hit his last home run, and a note from an opposing player who got a hit off Ruth as a rookie. The last two of those have never been on display. The museum will also host a lunch Sept. 12 featuring “VIP speakers,” Gibbons said. It plans to debut a film on Ruth’s 1914 rookie season later this year, among other celebrations that will extend into the fall and beyond. “We are scheduling events to run all the way through 2025,” said Gibbons, who’s worked for the museum since 1982. The 50th anniversary comes almost a decade after the closing of the Sports Legends Museum, an extension of the Babe Ruth museum that sat just outside Camden Yards in the former Camden Station. The museum closed the location in 2015 after it was unable to reach an agreement on a new lease with the Maryland Stadium Authority. The Babe Ruth Birthplace houses most of what was once at the Sports Legends site, and that space has been vacant since. But the museum is renewing efforts to expand. “Our mission now is to find a new location,” Gibbons said. Mike Gibbons shows off former Orioles manager Earl Weaver’s 1996 National Baseball Hall of Fame ring in the archives. (Kim Hairston/Staff) Ambitions for a new location are high. With it, Gibbons and Herne aim to make a space they hope will transform how people view museums. Among the plans are QR codes to show visitors video and audio to accompany displays. Holograms would talk to passersby. Indoor batting cages are being discussed, with an overall focus on immersion and interaction, rather than an expectation that visitors will continually stop to read display panels. Some of those improvements could be seen soon in the Babe Ruth museum, they said. “We would have artifacts and we would have displays in there, but there would be much more to do,” Herne said. “That means new technologies. That means looking at preservation in a different way, looking at education in a different way.” A new site would store most of the collection of memorabilia from the Ravens, the Orioles, the University of Maryland and other local teams, while the original location would retain mostly Ruth-centric exhibits. Other possible additions include featuring more stories of women in the local sports scene, like Orioles head groundskeeper Nicole Sherry, public address announcer Adrienne Roberson, broadcaster Melanie Newman and Camden Yards architect Janet Marie Smith. The museum won’t stray far from its roots — it’ll continue to be at the forefront of research on Ruth’s career. Said Herne: “We’re learning stuff about him to this day.” Those lofty aspirations aren’t without their challenges. The museum’s directors are only in the early stages of identifying a location and planning what the space will look like. And they say they face obstacles drawing visitors from the Greater Baltimore area because of news coverage about city crime. “The news is always bad about Baltimore. It’s all bad all the time,” Herne said. “I don’t have a problem attracting visitors from New Jersey or Virginia. I have problems attracting visitors from Towson, Bel Air and Westminster. For us, it’s finding ways to bring people back downtown and convince them it’s safe to come downtown.” A $6 million-plus Babe Ruth card is returning to Baltimore in an armored truck, and ‘shares’ are skyrocketing Gibbons said “much of the planning and funding strategies will be tied to the location of the project.” “Once a location is determined, we can develop an exhibit design plan and operating budget,” he said. “We are confident that our vision to create an interactive, STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Math]-intensive attraction will draw good support from the community.” Gibbons and Herne combine for more than six decades of experience at the museum. They’ve watched it grow, struggle and overcome across its 50 years in Baltimore. A new site, one they say can be the future of museums, is now the focus. They know they must evolve. “We’re hesitant to call it a museum because we don’t want to create a traditional museum,” Herne said. “We want to create something that is experiential.” Mike Gibbons, director emeritus of the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, looks over an exhibit of Orioles memorabilia. (Kim Hairston/Staff)Shawn Herne, executive director of the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, near a model of Yankee Stadium. The museum is celebrating its 50-year anniversary beginning on July 29 and continuing until 2025. (Kim Hairston/Staff)Mark Belanger’s Gold Glove, and Al Bumbry’s Silver Glove awards in the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum archives. The museum will celebrate its 50-year anniversary starting July 29 and continuing 2025. (Kim Hairston/Staff)Mike Gibbons, director emeritus of the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, near an exhibit of Babe Ruth’s records. Gibbons says changes to the exhibit will have to be made after Major League Baseball added the statistics of former Negro Leagues players into its historical record. The museum will celebrate its 50-year anniversary starting July 29 and continuing 2025. (Kim Hairston/Staff)Mike Gibbons, director emeritus of the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, shows some of the archived items that will be put on display for the museum’s 50-year anniversary celebration on Friday. (Kim Hairston/Staff)Mike Gibbons, director emeritus of the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, holds the Vince Lombardi Trophy won by the Baltimore Colts in 1971 in the archives. This is one of several items that will be put on display for the museum’s 50-year anniversary celebration on July 29. Events commemorating the anniversary will continue until 2025. (Kim Hairston/Staff)Show Caption of Expand View the full article Quote
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