Your eyes move back and forth among the glass cases. Leatherback Turtle. Komodo Dragon. San Diego Chicken.

Welcome to the "Baseball As America" exhibition at New York City's American Museum of Natural History. The landmark exhibit -- this is the first time the Hall of Fame has gone on the road -- will open this Friday and remain on display at the Museum until August 18, when it will travel to nine other cities. Tuesday it was unveiled to the media to the accompaniment of Eddie Layton's organ, Bob Wolf's introduction of 26 Hall of Famers and a nice speech by Hank Aaron in which he thanked the corporate sponsors, "Enron and Young." (Ernst & Young, you just can't buy publicity like that.) But hey, mistakes are part of baseball and America, too.

In all honesty, it is a wonderful exhibit, beginning at the end of the third-floor hallway reserved for amphibians. There, the Famous Chicken -- or at least his costume -- greets you. You'll see seats from the Polo Grounds and the cornerstone from Ebbets Field. The Doubleday Ball and Big Mac's bat. Jackie Robinson's 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers uniform and Shoeless Joe Jackson's shoes. The letter from FDR giving "the green light" to major league baseball to continue during World War II, and the T206 Honus Wagner card.

Those are some of the obvious things. Some of the greatest joys to be found at the actual Hall of Fame are the artifacts you might find at a garage sale of baseball history. Those are here, too:

Uniforms worn by George Gonzales in The Bad News Bears and Robert Redford in The Natural. The trainer's kit belonging to the legendary Yankees and Mets trainer, Gus Mauch, which, by the way, looks like Dr. Frankenstein's tackle box. A game simulation board from a Waynesburg, Pa., hotel. Baseball clown Nick Altrock's giant glove. A "George Brett For President" bumper sticker. Eddie Gaedel's No. 1/8 uniform.

During the preview, actual Hall of Famers mingled with the media or sat in chairs amid the collections. In one chair sat Earl Weaver, the great Orioles manager. (At this point, I will confess an abiding affection for the often fiery, even-more-often brilliant skipper. I mean, who else could have punctuated a discussion of Hamlet by saying, "If Polonius didn't f---ing say it, I've lived the last 35 years of my life backwards.")

True to his curmudgeonly fashion, Earl began our conversation with, "It's a bad idea."

"What's a bad idea?"

"Taking all this stuff out of Cooperstown. Who's gonna wanna go there now?"

"Actually, a lot of this stuff wasn't on display at the Hall of Fame. And it might get people to go to Cooperstown to see more."

"I still think it's a bad idea."

For once, Earl was wrong. Treasures were everywhere. Ty Cobb's sharpened spikes. Ruth's Bustin' Babes barnstorming uniform. Sandy Koufax's Cy Young Award. Hands-on facsimiles of the bats of Ruth, McGwire, Edd Roush, Rod Carew. Even ordinary-looking flotsam can conjure up a time and place, transport you to a green diamond from long ago.

In a display case entitled "Diversity In The Dugout", there are tributes to the ethnic heroes of baseball: a song about Fernando Valenzuela, an ad for an Ichi Roll, a box of Corn Flakes with Roberto Clemente on the front. In one corner of the case was a black-and-white advertisement, circa 1929, for an appearance by Andy Cohen, "The Most Talked About Player Of The New York Giants." Seems if you bought a suit or topcoat from Berler's on October 6, you'd get a free baseball autographed by the Jewish second baseman.

When I saw this, I went back to revisit Weaver. It just so happens that Andy Cohen was Weaver's minor league manager in both New Orleans and Denver. I wanted to know if Earl had seen the sign. "Andy Cohen's here?" said Weaver. "No s---. Great man, Andy. Gave me a valuable lesson. You know the umpire, Davey Phillips? I got thrown out of a game in Wichita by his father for calling him a name. Afterwards in the clubhouse, Andy asked me what I called him, and when I told him, he said, 'Never call an umpire by a name that would get you in a fight in a bar. On the field, they can't defend themselves. So it's not fair to call them names.'

"I know you're not going to believe this," continued Earl, "but not once, in all those times I got thrown out, did I ever call an umpire by a name like c--------- or m-----------."

Just then, Earl's party arrived to take him back downstairs.

"Wait a minute, guys," he said. "I gotta go see somethin'."

Steve Wulf is executive editor of ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at steve.wulf@espnmag.com.