About 15 years ago, baseball diehard Bruce Hellerstein was visiting Turner Field in Atlanta, and he had an epiphany: He was going to take his basement collection of old-time stadium artifacts and turn it into a museum.
“There was a big train box car that was a museum, if you will, of Braves history,” Hellerstein recalled. “It was nice, but I went in there and said to myself, ‘Geez, I don’t have to take a backseat to this. This is what I’m going to do.'”
So in 2010, Hellerstein opened the National Ballpark Museum on Blake Street in LoDo, less than a homer’s distance from the main entrance to Coors Field. It’s the only museum dedicated to the original 14 classic ballparks, and also focuses on preserving the history of baseball in Denver.
The museum is split into different sections focused on the classic ballparks, which are characterized by their concrete structures and surrounding neighborhoods, including the last two remaining ones in Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. There are also parts dedicated to the Denver Bears, Colorado’s renowned minor-league team, as well as the area’s Negro Leagues roots, its barnstorming acts, and Coors Field.
For the 75-year-old Hellerstein, a graduate of George Washington High and the University of Denver, the museum is his effort to “preserve American treasures” for future generations.
“This is a gift to the community, and as a fourth-generation native here, that’s very important to me,” Hellerstein said. “Passing this on — how the game used to be, and the uniqueness of the classic ballparks it was played in — I see it as a legacy to the city and the community.”
A lifelong pursuit
The museum is the result of a lifetime of Hellerstein’s obsession with baseball.
As a kid, he would drag anybody he could to Bears Stadium and “not let them leave.” He made his mother sit there with him in a rainstorm for hours. He’d camp out before and after games to get players’ autographs. He collected baseball cards with fervor, and any other memorabilia he could get his hands on.
A couple of notable accomplishments on the diamond also fueled his love affair. He threw a no-hitter in the local PONY League, and later broke up a no-hitter as a freshman at GW. His enthusiasm didn’t wane as an adult, when the CPA by day joined the Denver Baseball Commission to help attract an MLB franchise to Denver.
Then, he was part of the Coors Field Design Committee. It was Hellerstein who suggested to architecture firm HOK that the entrance to Coors Field at 20th and Blake emulate Ebbets Field’s famous rotunda, and the firm took his suggestion.
All along, he zealously accumulated relics from bygone stadiums, eventually leading to what fellow collector George Tahan called “the (actualization) of a pie-in-the-sky idea.”
“I don’t know if I’d have the wherewithal or the guts to go rent some space across the street from Fenway Park and create a museum,” said Tahan, who lives in Boston. “He’s obviously a really sharp business guy, and he’s figured out a way to make this happen.
“A lot of us collectors have our own little museum at our house. And we all have stuff cluttering our basements, garages, storage containers. We have our man caves. But he turned his collection into a museum and a 501(c)(3). He took it to the next level: A place where everybody can see it. … He is incredibly invested in this preservation of Americana.”
Financing a passion
Hellerstein‘s personal financial investment in the museum has sustained the nonprofit over the past decade-plus.
Initially, he sold all his baseball cards to get the money to buy the space for the museum, which is located on the first floor of an old brick warehouse, with his CPA firm housed in the back. That seed money included auctioning off a complete run of Mickey Mantle cards.
“It was probably one of the most foolish things I’ve ever done in my life, because when I sold the cards to help finance the museum, I figured I could replace the cards,” Hellerstein said. “Only one problem: Now, I don’t have the money to replace them.”
In the time since, Hellerstein’s also sold or traded pieces from his collection to keep the museum going. Sometimes those transactions were to pay the museum’s mortgage after a slow month at his CPA firm; other times, he did it to get the capital to buy another artifact he really wanted.
Among the items he’s sold are two signed Babe Ruth balls, an Ebbets Field usher’s cap, a piece of the original Yankee Stadium façade and an on-deck circle from Wrigley Field.
That’s all because running the museum is essentially a break-even effort that comes with a significant price tag, including enormous insurance and security costs. With all that to budget for, Hellerstein doesn’t have the cash flow to bankroll new additions to his collection, especially in an age where the price of classic ballpark artifacts is at an all-time high.
“It’s not a comfortable position to be in, but what drives me is that this means so much to me,” he said. “I would hate to see this thing fold up before I fold up.”
Hellerstein’s efforts are paying off, even though it’s mostly out-of-towners who are frequenting the museum. Hellerstein estimates only about 5% of the museum’s visitors are locals.
Once inside, those fans are often led on personal tours by Hellerstein, who regales visitors with various anecdotes and little-known factoids. He’s known to spring pop quizzes upon guests. And the baseball traditionalist in him is constantly coming out along the way.
He laments about the “insane” prices of tickets to the World Series, of which he’s been to 11. He espouses his belief that old-time players were just as strong as today’s stars, and doubles down on his view that no one will ever transcend the game like Ruth did. And ask him about some of the recent rule changes, such as the pitch clock, and he’ll reply, “It’s like taking a crayon to the Mona Lisa.”
Whatever you think about Hellerstein’s take on the modern game, there’s no denying the depth and breadth of his collection in a place that longtime local MLB scout Ed Henderson argues “is among the top baseball museums in the country behind the National Baseball Hall of Fame.”
Among the museum’s featured items are a complete panel from Fenway Park’s Green Monster, a window from Forbes Field, a bench from Wrigley Field, a turnstile from Shibe Park, the jersey that Denver Zephyrs slugger Joey Meyer wore during his record 582-foot homer in 1987, and over three dozen seats from bygone ballparks.
Plus, there are several rare artifacts in a room dedicated to Ebbets Field, including a light bulb from the first night game there as well as the last known baseball globe that was part of the chandelier inside the stadium’s rotunda.
“I’m just in awe of what he has,” local baseball historian Jay Sanford said. “And he’s not just a collector — he knows his history. Typically, those people are two different people. But Bruce is the perfect combination. He’s a collector and a historian, and anyone who interacts with him in his museum quickly sees that.”
The future of history
Now, the question becomes how Hellerstein can sustain the museum in perpetuity.
“Maybe the city would step in and get involved to preserve it,” said ex-Rockies pitcher and local high school baseball coach Mark Knudson. “But it’s definitely going to take somebody with a special passion for baseball to keep it going.”
The museum’s board, which consists of Hellerstein’s immediate family, will have to address that uncertain future after he is gone.
The museum has zero employee costs because it’s staffed by all volunteers. But long-term, it needs a tangible funding plan. Attendance has gone up each year, with about 1,000 visitors in 2023, but is highly seasonal. And with admission at $20, ticket sales alone won’t keep the doors open forever.
“I’m using every last penny to keep this thing going,” Hellerstein said. “I wish I had an answer (on its long-term future). But if you look at any museum with any kind of history, the first thing you see when you walk in is the wall of donors and grants. You don’t see anything like that here because we don’t have anything like that, and our biggest donation has been in the hundreds of dollars.
“Yes, we need money to keep going indefinitely. It’s really that simple. And it needs a lot of money.”
About the National Ballpark Museum
Year Opened: 2010
Curator/Founder: Bruce Hellerstein
Address: 1940 Blake Street
Admission: $20 adults, kids free
Hours: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday – Saturday
Museum focus: 14 classic ballparks, Denver baseball history
