Cooperstown All-Star Village Guide
Questions or Feedback?
- If you have any questions email me at paulpak246@gmail.com
- If you think anything should be added to this guide, email me.
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About this Guide These recommendations are from my own personal experience from July 2024. Some information might be slightly outdated by the time you go.
Before you go
Airport
There are multiple airports to choose from:
BGM, ALB, SYR (1-2 hours from CASV)
LGA, JFK, BOS (3.5-4 hours from CASV)
The long drives are fairly easy because the majority of the drive won’t be in traffic. Just make sure you drive during the day, because it will be pitch black for at least 2 hours on the longer drives as you approach Oneonta.
The best way to choose is…
If you don’t plan on doing any tourist stuff and going straight to Oneonta, just pick the closest airport to All Star Village. I would still recommend getting there a day or so early to adjust to the time zones and sorting out any issues with luggage if necessary.
If you do plan on doing tourist stuff, then I recommend you do that before the tournament and pick the airport based on where your vacation will start. Some reasons to do tourist stuff before the tournament:
Doing some vacationing before the tournament allows your family to adjust to time zone differences before games start.
If you do have a far drive from the airport to CASV, doing tourist stuff in the first day or two means you don’t have a long drive immediately after flying into the airport.
If there are any issues with your luggage, this gives you a few days to sort it out before the tournament
If you wait until after the tournament, you’ll be too tired to really enjoy any tourist stuff.
We did the following:
Flew into LGA, stayed in Manhattan/Upper East Side, went to a Yankees Game
Rented a car at LGA, drove to Oneonta
After the tournament, drove to Boston, stayed in downtown Boston, went to a Redsox Game, flew out of BOS
- Expenses:
- Everybody's cost will vary, but click on this spreadsheet to give you an idea of our expenses throughout the trip. See each tab to see costs for different parts of our trip.
Hotel vs. Airbnb
Stay Close to CASV - Regardless of what you pick, it’s best to stay somewhere close (within 5-10 minutes from the fields). You’ll likely have gaps in between games, and being able to go back to a hotel or house for even 30 minutes is so nice to get some rest away from the heat. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have a small gap between games, and you’re stuck at CASV in the heat because your hotel is too far away.
Airbnb is Preferred - Airbnb is much better than a hotel especially if you have siblings with you. It’s so much nicer to have the extra space and you’ll save money by cooking your own meals vs. eating out.
Recommended places to stay
Airbnb (https://dub.sh/lhgaqqE) - 3 Bedrooms, 1 Bathroom. Up to 6 guests
Very nice, clean house. Great host. Less than 1 mile (3 minute drive) away. We originally booked through airbnb, but the link above allows you to book directly with the host and it will be about 15% cheaper than airbnb. Click “Book Now”, and it will take you to the home page with all 5 of her properties.
Hotel (https://dub.sh/5cPw5te)
Spacious rooms. Free breakfast. Very friendly staff. Less than 3 miles (6 minute drive) away
Checklist
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General
Note: You can bring umbrellas, but they’ll be hard to pack and a hassle to carry around
Comfortable, weather proof walking shoes.
Note: There is a lot of walking and be prepared for walking around in the rain. The shoes in the link are very durable and water proof. Perfect for rainy weather.
Medicine - This is a nice case for traveling
Note: None of the bathrooms we went to had toilet seat covers
Note: You don’t need this while at CASV, but if you drive out of Oneonta at night (e.g. to New York City or Boston), you will be driving for at least a couple of hours with zero street lights.
For the Bunkhouse
Label for clothes (In case clothes get mixed up in the team laundry) and Sharpie marker
Note: It’s not really worth buying the CASV bedding package. Some people have used dark colored sheets to hang over the windows since there are no curtains/blinds, but I believe it may be against the bunk house rules to do that. So it would be a good idea check before you do this.
Mesh Laundry Bag (Your player will have non-baseball laundry that is not washed by CASV. They can hand you this bag mid-week to do laundry at your airbnb)
Towel
Hooks (Use them on bunk bed or in the shower stalls to hang towels and other items)
Swimsuit for shower and swimming
Shower Sandals - These were perfect for the bunkhouse showers
Shoe dryer in case your shoes/cleats get soaked in the rain
Regular clothes for when you go eat or hang out near the bunkhouse
Lock for luggage (Keep valuables in suitcase and lock the zippers together. Won’t keep your stuff 100% safe, but will deter someone from stealing valuables like pins or gloves)
Power strip or Power station in case your bed is far from an outlet
Note: Lithium batteries need to be put in carry on, not checked in. Check TSA guidelines. This power station will come in handy after the trip too. We use it when we have blackouts to plug in our router and other important devices.
Phone charging cable (Ideally long enough to reach an outlet that is far away)
Note: Refill your water bottle in the bunkhouse before going to the field, so you have cold water throughout the games.
Cash or Apple Pay to buy snacks
Note: There aren’t too many places, so you don’t need a lot of money. $10-20 is plenty, so you don’t risk getting money stolen. You can always give your player more cash later if needed
Cooler (1-2 for the whole team. Parents can take turns filling up cooler with ice, water, drinks, and providing snacks. Probably best to buy this at Walmart when you get there or from another team that came the week before you)
Pins (see note about pins)
For Parents/Siblings
Keep a clean set of clothes for your player with you.
Note: If your player stays with you for any period of time, it will be easier to have a clean set of clothes with you instead of having to go back to the bunkhouse for clothes.
Take a picture of your player’s birth certificate.
Note: We didn’t need it, but had it saved on our phones just in case.
Stuff to buy when you get there (e.g. Walmart)
Bug spray (I usually get bit all the time, but didn’t get bit at all while at CASV. Some people recommend having it though)
Febreeze (We didn’t need this, but something to consider buying for the bunkhouse)
Blanket (They had a cheap flannel blanket for $4)
Opening Ceremony + Games
Check In & Opening Ceremony
Arrival - Get to All-Star Village by 830am to get good parking, but the overflow parking is not that far away, so it’s fine if you get there a little later
Prior to Check In - From 9am to 12pm, you just trade pins and check out the stores. It’s best to get there at least by 9am to maximize the pin trading since the majority of trading happens that morning, but it’s not bad if you come late because there will be plenty of chances to pin trade throughout the week.
Check In - Happens around 12pm. Your team goes down together to the bunkhouse and you will be able to help your player set things up.
Opening Ceremony - Happens around 5pm. If you want a good seat, you have to arrive over an hour before the ceremony starts. However, if your group of parents are not really into trying to win the spirit award, you can just show up 30 minutes before the ceremony and there will be plenty of space on the grassy area. You’ll be kind of far from where your players come out, but you may be able to squeeze into a spot to get a close up picture or video. The teams come out in the order listed in Tourney Machine. For example, if your team has #5 by their name, they will be the 5th team to be announced. If you have a higher number like #60, you’ll have a better chance to move closer to the field for a picture because the parents of the earlier teams may have cleared out by then.
Skills Competition - Immediately following the Opening Ceremony, they will go to the fields for skills competition. They will tell you after the ceremony which field you’re on. This will take 2-3 hours, so you will be here way past dinner time. Find a good spot to sit because you’ll be here for a while. Might also be a good idea to pack some snacks or a dinner for yourself.
First night dinner - Dinner was not provided this first night, so we had to arrange food to be sent to the bunkhouse. One of the parents can bring food to the bunkhouse after the Skills Competition.
Pool Play, Bracket Play, Fireworks
General - When there are rain delays, CASV will make every attempt to get all games completed. This means games can begin very late in the evening (There have been multiple games in 2024 that started anywhere from 1 am to 2:45 am)
Pool Play - There are 2 games per day for 3 days straight. One of those days, you will have an 8am game and a 9:30pm game. That is the day you’ll be able to go to the Hall of Fame Museum.
Bracket Play
There will be 2 days of bracket play. The lowest seeded teams will play each other in the morning on the first day and can play up to 5 games if they keep winning. The top 16 or so teams will get a bye the first day. The lower seeded teams that get a bye will play morning games on day 2 and can play up to 5 games if they keep winning.
When to Check Out: It’s hard to predict when you’ll be done, especially if you’re trying to figure out when to check out of your hotel/airbnb. Here are some things to consider when deciding when to check out.
Checking out the last day of the tournament: Even if you don’t make it to the championship game, it’s possible you’ll be there until the afternoon on the last day, which means you’ll have to check out of your hotel/airbnb in the morning before you go to the fields that day. Then if you end up staying at the fields late, you may potentially have a long drive to the airport when it’s pitch black. But if you get eliminated early, then it will be nice to be able to check out early and get to your next destination early.
Checking out the next day after the tournament: This makes your last day much more comfortable because you don’t have to worry about checking out and getting to the fields on time. But if you get eliminated on the first day of bracket play or early on the 2nd day, you’ll end up with a lot of time to kill. If you can find stuff to do around Oneonta, then it won’t be a problem, but you’ll be pretty tired by then and there’s not too much to do around there.
Fireworks - This happens on the first night of bracket play, after the last game of the day has ended (usually around 9-9:30pm). The fireworks happen directly above the inflatable Green Monster tunnel, but the best view is on top of the grassy hill (where opening ceremony took place) near the parking lot. You’ll get a great view of all the fields with the fireworks happening above it.
Other
Pin Trading
General
Pin trading happens EVERYWHERE and all throughout the week, so always have some pins available to trade with you.
The first few hours of the first day (Before check-in) is where the majority of the pin trading happens, so if your player is really into it, make sure they get to CASV by at least 9am so they can trade before everybody heads into the bunkhouse. Those first few hours will be the best chance to get rid of your own pins.
It’s a good idea to save maybe 10 of your own pins, but try to get rid of most of your own pins early on, because towards the end, if you have a bunch of your own pins left, it will be hard to get rid of those. If you’ve already traded away all of your pins and you have a variety of other team’s pins, it will be much easier to make trades later in the week.
How many pins should I bring?
General rule of thumb is probably enough to trade with every team in your week, which will be around 70. However, some kids don’t care about collecting every team’s pin and some teams have multiple variations of their pins, so there’s no exact number to go for. We had 65 per player and still came home with some leftover pins.
If your team is really into it, you can create multiple variations of your pins to make them more rare. Those are always big hits during trading, but you probably want to limit how many “rare” ones you have to about 5-10 per player to make them truly rare. Other teams had entire sets of their pins (e.g. 4 different colors of their pins), which was also a big hit because kids wanted to collect an entire set, especially if one of the colors was particularly rare.
Get some pins for the siblings too (especially the younger ones). I didn’t think this would be too necessary, but pin trading ended up being the most fun part of their trip and kept them super busy. They don’t need as many as the players. If they have 15-20 pins, that’s probably enough to keep them busy. If you want them to have their own large collection, you can get them more.
How to keep pins safe
It’s a good idea to separate pins into ziplock bags (e.g. 10 per bag). This way your player does not have to carry all 70+ pins everywhere they go and can just carry 20 or so pins at a time to trade. Kids do steal pins, so this allows them to keep the majority of their pins safe either in their luggage or with the parents.
We initially had our son give us any pins he wasn’t planning on trading, but towards the middle of the week, he wanted to trade his nicer pins for more rare pins. So it was a good idea for him to access to all of his pins all the time.
A lot of kids purchased towels or cases for their pins, but the towels seemed like a hassle to have to continue to pin/unpin every time they made a trade. Plus the towel sags a lot because of the weight. The pin case at the gift shop is useful if you plan on storing the pins in the case when you get home. We just kept the pins in a ziplock bag and purchased this shadow box frame like this one here when we got home to display the pins (see below). We purchased a Cooperstown sticker at the gift shop to display in the middle.
The Hill & What to bring to each game
The Hill - The hill isn’t too bad, especially since they have golf carts everywhere. However, if you have elderly grandparents or young children, you’ll definitely want to use the golf carts or tractor.
Should I bring a wagon? It depends on how much stuff you plan on bringing, but keep in mind that the hill is steep enough that carrying a wagon up and down could be a HUGE pain. Also, other than the first day, you’re not going to be at the fields for too long each time. You arrive 20 minutes before game time, and the game is over in 2 hours. So you’re not going to need a wagon full of stuff especially if you have an airbnb nearby. A small backpack and a small cooler backpack for drinks/snacks is kind of all you need.
Do I need a chair or bleacher seat? Most parents sit in the parent dugout which has enough bleacher seats for everybody. The parent dugout is past the player’s dugout, so it’s a great view of the field (mostly the outfield), but not a good view of the batter’s box (See below for view from the parent dugout). If you’re ok sitting here, and you don’t mind carrying the bleacher seat everywhere, then it’s not a bad idea. If you prefer a closer view of the batter’s box, you would sit closer to home plate. There’s usually one picnic bench nearby that you can sit at. Otherwise, you would need a chair. They have cheap ones at the local walmart.
Home run balls
Finding Your Home Run Ball - You will be able to find your home run ball at most fields, but there are some fields that are surrounded by forests, swamps, or fenced off completely. So there will be some fields where you will not be able to retrieve your home run ball. It’s a good idea to collect foul balls early on (especially during the home run derby) and keep them in case your player hits a home run and you’re not able to retrieve it.
Ball Engraving - Once your player hits a home run, visit the Home Run center (one of the tents across the way from the gift shop) and you can buy Home Run souvenirs and get your ball engraved for $25.
Ball Case - These ball cases are great for displaying home run balls
Hall of Fame
Tickets - Your coach will have tickets for the players. Everybody else has to purchase tickets from the hall of fame website.
Getting there - It’s about 30 minutes north of CASV and it will be crowded. So if you need to meet your team at a certain time, you need to give yourself at least 30 minutes to find street parking.
Museum - You can get through the museum in a couple of hours. You can spend more time reading through every sign, but it’s pretty crowded and you won’t really be able to do that in a time efficient way. So budgeting 2 hours for the museum is probably good enough. One of the first things you’ll do is watch a 20-25 minute video, so it’s nice to be able to do that with your team, but they show it every hour if you miss it.
Shops/Restaurants - There’s a lot of unique shops and restaurants, so you can budget another 2 hours or so for this. However, you’ll probably want to just go back to your hotel and rest before your evening game. Even though there are a lot of restaurants, they are mostly small mom and pop shops, so there isn’t really a good place for a large team lunch. So it’s probably best to split up and eat in small groups.
Stuff to do outside of CASV
Oneonta is a really small town, so there really isn’t much to do outside of CASV. However, I wouldn’t go crazy trying to plan stuff for yourself or for the siblings. You’re either going to be at CASV during a game or trying to get some rest at your hotel/airbnb. Having lunches/dinner with the other families will keep you busy enough. There is a lake nearby if you have enough time to go (https://dub.sh/20sS5XM)
Streaming/Recording/Photography
Cooperstown Live Stream
Link to the Live Stream website
$100 for 30 days access
You sign up for 1 account, and you can log into that account on 4 devices. If you want to log into a 5th device, you have to remove a device.
However, only 2 devices can be streaming at any given time.
For up to 30 days, you can create 60 second clips and download them
Pros
Quality is not as good as your phone's camera, but pretty good for streaming. Also, the connection is pretty reliable, and if there were any issues, they were quick to address it.
Ability to create and download 60 second clips is nice to make sure you can capture every moment
Cons
It's possible that a camera on a field can be broken the whole week and you may play multiple games on that field, which means you will have zero streaming for that field. (Note: In these cases, they will let you stream with your own camera, so it's good to bring your own camera as a back up)
Most viewers said the connection was good, but I have some seen some people on Facebook complain that the connection was unstable.
You cannot download the entire game, only 60 second clips.
Is it still worth it?
I split the package with another family, so for $50 each it was totally worth it to have the grandparents be able to watch back at home. It was also worth it to be able to cut clips.
Check out the third story in this Instagram Highlight for a sample of what the clips/live stream look like.
Pro Tip:
If you don’t care about the streaming and just want the clips, you can wait until the end of the tournament to see if there are clips you actually want and pay the $100 at the end of the trip, because you will have 30 days to go back and look at any videos you want. I would just verify this with them before you try this.
If you have questions or issues, email them at info@cooperstown.com.
Glossy Finish Photo Package
Link to Glossy Finish Website
Two different packages. The main difference is that the more expensive one includes a team panoramic picture, which is very nice and one of our favorite souvenirs from the trip.
Pros
They do a good job of taking a picture of every kid and in general the quality of the pictures are really good and better than what you'll be able to take yourself (unless you have professional equipment).
If your particular game is not being photographed, but your player is pitching, you can call a pitching hotline, and they’ll send a photographer out immediately to take pictures of your player pitching.
Panoramic team photo is very nice. This is a great frame for the team picture.
Cons
They take 800-900 photos of each player, but about 75% of the photos will be the same action shot just taken over and over 1 second apart from each other.
Most of the good shots they take are pretty good, but some turn out very dark.
The website is very difficult to use. It’s almost impossible to select your photos on a phone because you have to select 800-900 photos one at a time. It’s much easier to select them on a computer. However, you will only have a few days after the championship game is over to select your photos. After that, you can’t save your photos. So if you don’t have your computer with you, you will have to do it immediately after your trip. The website is also very confusing to use and took me a good 30 minutes and multiple emails to customer support to figure out how to download the photos.
Are the photos still worth it?
In the end, even with some of the hassle above, I think it’s 100% worth it, especially if your whole team does the package and you split the cost evenly.
From where the parents sit, it’s almost impossible to take good pictures on your own, so this is really the only way you’ll end up with good pictures.
Even with all the photos of the same action shot over and over again, they actually turned out to be kind of cool because I was able to make a “flip book” style animation out of it. Check out the 4th story in this Instagram Highlights.
Your own video/camera equipment:
General Tips:
You can use whatever equipment you want. The only thing they don’t allow is mounting a camera onto the fence. I would still bring any mounting gear, because in the event that their camera is broken, they will let you mount and stream with your equipment.
A lot of the fields have the backstop completely covered (at least 10 feet high), so if you want to take any pictures of videos, you have to do so from the side. From the side, you'll get a decent view, but won’t be able to see the whole field.
I think you’re allowed to use a tripod, so you can set it up near the fence.
The parent dugout is a good side angle view of the field (especially the outfield), but not a very good view of the batters box. So it’s not a good place to take pictures/videos.
Suggested equipment:
This is the tripod I used. It was perfect for Cooperstown.
I use the Mevo Start for all games (either in Cooperstown or back home). It can be frustrating when you have to troubleshoot, but in general, it works great for streaming and is pretty resistant to heat (even in 100 degree weather). The battery life is also pretty good.
I recommend getting a U3 Micro SD card to be able to record in HD.
Places to Eat
Great for small groups, but won’t fit a whole team
Yellow Deli - A very quaint restaurant with great food and open until 3am, but it can take a long time to get your food.
Nick’s Diner - The food is decent and they give very large portions. It’s kind of like a better version of Denny’s.
Toscana Northern Italian Grill - A little on the pricey side, but food was fantastic.
Dazzo’s Kitchen - Upscale farm to table restaurant. Funky on the outside, but amazing food and posh rustic charm inside.
Other
Big Al’s BBQ of New York - We heard lots of good things about this place, but each time we went, it was closed to the public. I think they only do private catering during the weeks of CASV, so you have to call in advance. Call them at 607-386-4120 or email them at bigalsbbq7@gmail.com to ask about team parties.
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