The National Baseball Hall of Fame is based in Cooperstown, NY, of course, but they've been taking their show on the road. Their traveling exhibition, called "Baseball As America", makes its final stop at the Museum of Science beginning next week, and it's amazing.

Bostonist got a special sneak preview of the exhibit, attended by five Red Sox Hall of Famers (Carlton Fisk, Yaz, Eck, Wade Boggs and Bobby Doerr) and one visiting Oriole legend (Eddie Murray). Baseball guru Peter Gammons welcomed us by warning us that the displays will probably make us feel like we're 14 years old again. He was right. Some of the Hall of Fame's treasures are part of the exhibit, for instance the ball that Abner Doubleday allegedly used when he allegedly invented baseball in 1839, a bat fashioned by a GI in a Nazi prison camp to use in pickup games, and a baseball found in the rubble of New York's World Trade Center.

There are also some Boston-centric artifacts as part of the display: Curt Schilling's bloody sock (it's starting to look not unlike the Shroud of Turin), memorabilia from the 2004 and 2007 Series runs, and (just added) Manny's 500th home run helmet. Also part of the scene is a series of exhibits showing how baseball has mirrored the larger American experience, from the Negro Leagues and the All-American Girls' Professional League to the explosion of Latin American players in the late 20th Century.

Since it's at the Museum of Science, there's also plenty of stuff that stresses the science of the game - from the making of bats to the advances in medical technology that keep guys on the field. Dr. James Sherwood, director of the Baseball Research Center at UMass-Lowell, spoke about how Major League Baseball asked his lab to check if the baseballs were juiced a few years ago, when home run production went way up. Sherwood said they analyzed the balls, found nothing amiss, and suggested "maybe they should look at some other reason why there were so many home runs".

There's interactive stuff, too - you can lean into a catcher's mask for an up-close view of a 95-MPH fastball. Also, they're soliciting people to share what baseball has meant in their lives, which will be displayed alongside the recollections of celebrities, players, and everyday folk. (You can get a head start on that.) And to cap it all off, the MoS food court will feature hot dogs as seen in ballparks across the country. Even if we're not going to the exhibit that day, the chances of us going over to Science Park for a Milwaukee Brewer bratwurst now and again are about 99.9997%.

"Baseball As America" opens at the Museum of Science on Sunday, and runs through September 1st. Details are at the MoS website.