“Books on Deck” is using the time during a delayed start to the baseball season to showcase many of the great baseball books that are being released in the spring and summer of 2020. Next up is New York City-based writer, Ralph Carhart, who went on a 48,000-mile journey to have a baseball that he found in Cooperstown photographed with every single person inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
In 2010, Carhart was in Cooperstown, N.Y., checking out the sights and sounds of Doubleday Field, a whimsical place to catch a ballgame with all of its old school charms. A small creek nearby produced a baseball just sitting in the stream, which Carhart retrieved.
That wasn’t the only sign from the universe to pursue this book idea. Not long after, Carhart, a genealogist, was in a cemetery and happened upon the gravesite of Abner Doubleday’s grandfather, also named Abner. These two matters of happenstance birthed the idea of “The Hall Ball."
“This all sparked an idea in me to take the baseball to all the members of the Hall of Fame, both living and deceased,” Carhart said. “I decided to bring the ball to the resting places of all the members of the Hall of Fame that are no longer with us and to those that are still alive to have their pictures taken with the ball.”
It took eight years for Carhart to wrap up the project with a few ups and downs along the way, most notably the passing of Mets legend, Gary Carter, who was still alive when the project began. However, Carhart missed his big chance to get a photograph with “The Kid."
“Gary Carter is my greatest project-related regret,” Carhart said. “I went to a baseball card show and there was a giant, long line. Gary was young when I had the chance to meet him, and I just figured there would be a second chance.”
Carter tragically died of cancer in 2012 at the way-too-young age of 57. Carhart was able to meet a different Mets icon though around that same time when he had the ball photographed with Ralph Kiner, which Carhart calls a highlight of his life.
“The Hall Ball” may be a bit unusual, but it is a moving tribute to the game’s all time-greats and worthy of its own induction into Cooperstown.