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pictures and autographs to game used memo- rabilia like uniforms, bats and balls and the occasional baseball curio as well. Did that checkbook belong to the late Yan- kee legend Thuman Munson? Yes. Yes, it did. Stil, even as his collection grew, the idea of building his own museum remained some- thing of a dream. A fun thought exercise the Pack didn’t expect to come to fruition. Until it did. “I had a place in our house that my wife so graciously allowed me to have, it was about 600 or 700 square feet and so I had a room there that I was just surrounded by baseball memorbillia. I quickly outgrew it but I had a loveseat in there. I would hang out in there and read baseball books and I realized how fun it was just to be surrounded by baseball memorabilia. “That’s when I started dreaming and sa- ying ‘Wouldn’t that be cool?’ but I was still three years or four years away from it being an actual possibility. “I didn’t really think it would happen, it was just kind of a cool dream.” And then the opportunity presented itself in 2021. Pack looked at various properties – including the Sherwood Commons space whi- ch he initially passed on – but every spot had its issues and on a return visit he was able to This autographed photo of James ‘Cool Papa’ Bell is in the Grovewood Museum’s section devoted to the Negro Leagues. Bell was said to be so fast he could hit a grounder up the middle and catch it at second.
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