Only Third Time Ever an Exhibit Dedicated to One Person’s Collection

		Methodist Radiology News Archive Featured in the Media JeffNEWS

For only the third time ever, the National Baseball Hall of Fame has dedicated an exhibit to the collection of one person—and that person is Philadelphia native and Methodist Hospital radiologist Mark Cooper, M.D., M.B.A.  The exhibit, which opened on April 12 in Cooperstown, NY, is called Home Games: A Century of Baseball Games from the Collection of Dr. Mark Cooper.  It features more than 50 games over a 100 year period from 1860 to 1960, and is on display through the end of the 2008 baseball season. 

Dr. Cooper, who is also a clinical assistant professor of Radiology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, was raised in North Philadelphia at 15^th and Clearfield Streets, close to where the Philadelphia Phillies played ball prior to the opening of Veterans Stadium.  He developed a strong passion for the national pastime early on, growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, and enjoyed countless hours playing baseball board games. With the roll of the dice or the flick of a spinner, Dr. Cooper brought to life a wealth of players and plays in the field of his imagination.

It wasn’t until Dr. Cooper was at a flea market in Adamstown in 1983 with his wife, Lynne, that he started collecting the games of his youth and recapturing the past.  Now, with a collection numbering over 500, he’s built a special room in his Wynnewood, PA home to showcase the board games and other memorabilia that he has amassed over a lifetime.  A national expert on the subject, Dr. Cooper co-authored Baseball Games: Home Versions of the National Pastime, 1860’s – 1960’s in 1995, a copy of which is proudly displayed in the radiologist’s Methodist Hospital office.  (The book is sold internationally.)  The Smithsonian Institute has even recognized his collection by including it in their book, Smithsonian Baseball: Inside the World’s Finest Private Collections.

“Baseball is the only game without a clock.  And board games don’t have clocks either.  So for me, these games represent the timelessness of childhood,” says Dr. Cooper.

“I like to say that I collected the games as I moved South on Broad over the years -- from Central High, to Temple (University), to Jefferson (Medical College), to Methodist (Hospital),” says Dr. Cooper with an obvious sense of nostalgia and pride for his hometown heritage and love of baseball.  “I guess you could say that as I moved forward in my life these games took me back to a time when baseball was truly a game – prior to free agency, when baseball was not as dependent on salary caps and T.V. revenue.”

Dr. Cooper’s collection stops at the point when games became electronic, between the 1960s and ’70s.  

Among the games featured in the Hall of Fame exhibit: The New Parlor Game of Base Ball from 1869, the oldest existing game, dating back to the first year of professional baseball; League Parlor Base Ball of 1884, the first baseball game to use dice; The Professional Game of Base Ball of 1890, the first baseball game produced by Parker Brothers; and The Champion Game of Base Ball from 1889, featuring the likenesses of Hall of Famers Dan Brouthers and John Clarkson.

Dr. Cooper graduated from Central High School in 1969 and Temple University, with a B.A. in biology, in 1973.  He received his doctor of medicine degree from Jefferson Medical College in 1977, and completed a residency in diagnostic radiology and fellowship in angiography at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in 1981.  Since 1981 he has been with Methodist Hospital Division of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

To read more about Dr. Mark Cooper’s Hall of Fame exhibit, go to: http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/museum/homegames.jsp