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The traditional commissioning ceremony for the USS Cooperstown will take place on Saturday, May 6 at Pier 88 in New York City. (Photo courtesy of Northrop Grumman, Feb. 22, 2023)

USS Cooperstown ‘Voyage’ Continues

By CASPAR EWIG
NEW YORK CITY

The saga of the joint venture between the United States Navy and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum began on July 26, 2015 in Doubleday Field. Then Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus floated the idea to Jane Forbes Clark, chairman of the NBHoF Board of Directors, of naming one of the recently established littoral class of fighting ships the USS Cooperstown. Ships are often named after states and cities, but in this case the name would also stand in honor of the baseball heroes enshrined in the Hall of Fame who were war heroes who served in the U.S. military.

From that day, the USS Cooperstown began to take form when—under the watchful eye of Mayor Ellen Tillapaugh as “keel authenticator”—the vessel’s backbone was laid at the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard in Marinette, Wisconsin on August 14, 2018. At that ceremony, Mayor Tillapaugh’s initials were welded onto the steel plate. During the next year and a half of construction, the USS Cooperstown was under full control of the Navy and the shipyard, finally being launched January 19, 2020.

Then, on February 29, 2020, amidst the spray of champagne from a bottle smashed against her bow by sponsor Alba Tull and in the company of her honorary sponsor, Jane Forbes Clark, Hull LCS #23 was officially christened the USS Cooperstown. And thus, ala the lesson learned from “The Pirates of Penzance,” having been “born” in a leap year she will always only age one year in every four and forever be the youngest littoral vessel in the naval fleet.

Being waterborne is, however, only one step in the process of becoming a full-fledged fighting ship. Thereafter the hull must be outfitted, and the completion of that leg of the USS Cooperstown’s voyage was marked by the celebration of an ancient ritual known as a mast stepping ceremony. That event took place on September 20, 2022, where a commemorative coin, a list of the 70 wartime Hall of Famers and an autographed baseball were sealed within the vessel.

Now, almost eight years after the idea first took root—and after having completed 3,500 nautical miles of sea trials—the USS Cooperstown will be commissioned as a fighting ship of the United States Navy. The traditional commissioning ceremony, inaugurated in 1775, will take place on Saturday, May 6 at Pier 88 in New York City.

The commissioning of a ship is not only the last chapter of the introduction, it also represents the first chapter of the vessel becoming an accepted unit in the operating forces of the United States Navy.

But, just as every player has to warm up before stepping up to the plate, the USS Cooperstown has already had a chance to knock the dirt off her cleats. Last month, while undergoing a routine trial run and awaiting her entrance as an integral part of the U.S. Naval fleet, she received a distress call and diverted course to rescue a stranded mariner off the coast of South Carolina.

The stories of the men commemorated by the USS Cooperstown will be shared in a future article, breathing a bit of life into what was once just a hulk of steel.

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