Fogelman Sports Museum at FAU: A Hidden Gem for Baseball and Sports Fans

I found one of the most fascinating sports museums I have ever visited completely by accident.

I was attending a conference in the Palm Beach area when we had a free day. We didn't have anything special planned, so we got in the car and started driving around. I happened to notice that Florida Atlantic University had a sports museum.

I almost passed it up.

My assumption was that a sports museum located on a university campus would primarily be devoted to FAU athletics—old football jerseys, team photographs, trophies and memorabilia of greatest interest to Florida Atlantic alumni.

Was I wrong.

Inside the Avron B. Fogelman Sports Museum at Florida Atlantic University is an extraordinary collection of baseball and sports memorabilia connected to Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, Roger Maris, Bo Jackson, the Kansas City Royals, Jim Thorpe, Muhammad Ali, the Olympics and many more of the biggest names and moments in sports history.

But what makes the Fogelman Sports Museum really special isn't simply the famous names.

It's how personal so much of the collection feels.

You don't just see an important baseball.

You learn how the baseball got there.

You don't just see something belonging to Babe Ruth.

You encounter objects connected to Ruth as a person, not merely Ruth the baseball legend.

And because the museum is relatively small and intimate, you can get remarkably close to pieces of sports history that would be headline exhibits in a much larger museum.

For baseball and sports fans visiting South Florida, this place is a genuine hidden gem.

What Is the Fogelman Sports Museum at FAU?

The Avron B. Fogelman Sports Museum is located on the campus of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

The museum is based on the private collection of Avron B. Fogelman, a businessman, sports collector and former co-owner of the Kansas City Royals.

Fogelman spent decades assembling sports memorabilia, but this was never simply a collection of expensive autographs and famous jerseys.

Many of the objects came out of his own experiences in sports and his relationships with athletes, executives and other people he met along the way.

That's important, because it explains why this museum feels so different.

Fogelman himself described the collection as American sports history told through artifacts, his personal stories and the stories of his friends.

In 2019, Fogelman donated the collection to Florida Atlantic University as part of a gift valued at more than $10 million. The museum opened in 2020 inside FAU's Schmidt Family Complex for Academic and Athletic Excellence. The approximately 3,500-square-foot museum contains more than 1,200 pieces of sports memorabilia and is free and open to the public.

Those numbers sound impressive.

But they don't explain why I liked the museum so much.

The stories do.

The World Series Ball, the Glove—and the Note

One display perfectly captures what makes the Fogelman Sports Museum special.

Avron Fogelman was part of the ownership group of the Kansas City Royals when they won the 1985 World Series.

Game 7 against the St. Louis Cardinals ended when Royals right fielder Darryl Motley caught a fly ball from Andy Van Slyke for the final out.

Motley kept the baseball.

He also kept the glove.

Today, both are at the Fogelman Sports Museum.

Think about that for a moment.

You're standing just a few feet from the actual baseball that ended the 1985 World Series and the glove that caught it.

At a lot of museums, that would be the entire story.

Not here.

Displayed with the ball and glove is a personal letter from Motley to Fogelman. Motley explains the story behind the objects and how they had essentially been sitting in his home. Reading the note, you understand that this wasn't simply a piece of memorabilia changing hands. There was a personal relationship involved.

The Kansas City Star has confirmed that the final-out ball, Motley's glove, a photograph and his letter to Fogelman are all displayed together at the museum.

For me, the letter was almost as interesting as the baseball.

It transforms the exhibit from “Here's the ball that ended a World Series” into a story about the player who caught it, what happened to the ball afterward and how it eventually became part of Fogelman's collection.

That personal connection appears throughout the museum.

Bo Jackson's Handwritten Royals Contract

Another object that stopped me was associated with Bo Jackson.

Jackson remains one of the most remarkable athletes of the modern era—a legitimate star in both Major League Baseball and the NFL.

But what fascinated me at Fogelman wasn't another Bo Jackson photograph, baseball card or autographed jersey.

It was his handwritten baseball contract with the Kansas City Royals.

Again, that's the difference between this museum and the typical memorabilia exhibit.

You're not looking at something that Bo Jackson signed years later for a collector.

You're looking at a document connected to an actual moment in his career and to Fogelman's own involvement with the Kansas City Royals.

I kept running across things like this.

You would look into a case expecting ordinary sports memorabilia and suddenly realize you were staring at an artifact connected directly to sports history.

A Yankees Fan's Dream

I should disclose something here.

I am a New York Yankees fan.

So there was no chance I was going to walk casually past a museum collection containing Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Roger Maris memorabilia.

FAU lists among the collection a Joe DiMaggio 1936 rookie uniform, the uniform Roger Maris wore during his historic 1961 season, and Babe Ruth memorabilia, along with many other pieces of baseball history.

And you can get close to them.

That's one of the great pleasures of visiting Fogelman.

There aren't massive crowds surrounding every display. You can stop. You can look. You can read the descriptions.

You have time to notice the unusual things.

And some of the unusual things are what affected me most.

Babe Ruth's Most Personal Memorabilia

There is plenty of Babe Ruth memorabilia in the world.

I've been to Cooperstown. I've seen Ruth bats, baseballs, photographs, uniforms and other artifacts.

But at Fogelman I encountered Babe Ruth items I never expected to see.

Among the pieces displayed during my visit were items identified as some of Ruth's final autographs, made for members of his own family, along with flowers associated with his funeral.

Those stopped me.

A Babe Ruth game-used item is historically important.

But something Ruth signed for his wife or children near the end of his life feels entirely different.

It takes you away from home-run totals and World Series championships for a moment.

You're no longer thinking about Babe Ruth the legend.

You're thinking about the man.

That's the kind of material that gives the Fogelman Sports Museum an emotional quality I wasn't expecting from a sports memorabilia collection.

Hank Aaron's Record-Breaking Uniform

Then you come to Hank Aaron.

On April 8, 1974, Aaron hit career home run number 715, passing Babe Ruth to become Major League Baseball's career home run leader.

The Fogelman collection includes Aaron's uniform from 1974 when he broke Ruth's career home run record.

This isn't a reproduction.

It isn't simply a baseball signed by Aaron years later.

It's a uniform connected directly with one of the defining moments in baseball history.

And there it is in Boca Raton, Florida, in a museum on a university campus that many baseball fans have probably never heard of.

Why I Enjoyed Parts of Fogelman More Than Cooperstown

I've visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, and every serious baseball fan should go.

Cooperstown is Cooperstown.

It tells the enormous story of baseball. It has a depth and scope that a small private collection obviously cannot match.

But I'll say something that may irritate a few baseball purists.

In some ways, I enjoyed the Fogelman Sports Museum more.

It comes down to intimacy.

At Cooperstown, you are visiting one of the great national museums. There are enormous collections, major exhibits and plenty of visitors who have made a pilgrimage specifically to be there.

At Fogelman, I felt as though somebody had opened the doors to an extraordinary private collection and invited me to look around.

You can stand close to the objects.

You can take your time.

And because so many of the objects come with personal stories, there are discoveries that simply feel different from what you find in a major institutional museum.

The 1985 World Series baseball is a perfect example.

Seeing the ball is impressive.

Seeing the ball, the glove that caught it and the player's personal letter explaining how they wound up with Fogelman tells a story.

That's what I remember.

This Isn't Just a Baseball Museum

Baseball was the highlight for me, but describing Fogelman as merely a baseball memorabilia museum would be a mistake.

The collection ranges across American sports and, in some cases, American history.

There are Olympic torches from historically significant Games, including Berlin in 1936, London in 1948 and Munich in 1972. There are game-worn pants belonging to Moe Berg, the Major League catcher who also worked in espionage during World War II.

There are items associated with Muhammad Ali, golf memorabilia connected to legends including Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, and material dealing with Jackie Robinson, the Negro Leagues and pioneering Major League umpire Emmett Ashford.

You'll also find the 1969 Ryder Cup Trophy, football memorabilia from Jim Thorpe, and a football signed by the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins.

One of the museum's interactive displays even includes a recording of Fogelman's telephone conversation with President Ronald Reagan after the Royals won the 1985 World Series.

That's when it becomes clear that Fogelman isn't simply a museum full of sports collectibles.

It is also a museum about American history told through sports.

The Size of the Museum Actually Makes It Better

I think the museum's relatively small size works in its favor.

At approximately 3,500 square feet, this isn't the kind of museum where you need an entire day and comfortable shoes.

But don't confuse small with insignificant.

I would rather spend an hour carefully examining an exceptional collection than spend four hours walking through galleries filled with material that doesn't particularly interest me.

Fogelman has a remarkably high concentration of “I can't believe they have that” objects.

You aren't walking half a mile between the things you came to see.

They are everywhere.

And the museum's design keeps you physically close to the collection.

For a sports fan, that's a big part of the appeal.

One of South Florida's Best Attractions for Baseball Fans

What surprised me most is how little I knew about this place before stumbling across it.

Baseball fans routinely plan trips around Cooperstown.

They visit spring training facilities in Florida and Arizona.

They tour famous ballparks.

They seek out Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle and Negro League history.

Yet here is a museum in South Florida containing more than 1,200 pieces of sports memorabilia, including uniforms associated with Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio and Roger Maris, the ball and glove from the last out of the 1985 World Series and an assortment of deeply personal objects—and I had never heard of it.

I suspect I'm not alone.

If you're a baseball fan visiting Palm Beach County, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale or South Florida, this deserves to be on your list.

I would go even further.

If you're a serious baseball memorabilia fan, I think it's worth making a special trip.

Visiting the Fogelman Sports Museum at Florida Atlantic University

The Avron B. Fogelman Sports Museum is located inside the Schmidt Family Complex for Academic and Athletic Excellence on the north side of Florida Atlantic University's Boca Raton campus, adjacent to FAU Stadium.

The address is 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, Florida.

Admission is currently free, although visitors must pay for parking on the FAU campus. The university also notes that the museum is closed to the general public on FAU home football game days. Because museum hours can change, check the official FAU website before making a special trip.

Is the Fogelman Sports Museum Worth Visiting?

If you're a sports fan, yes.

If you're a baseball fan, absolutely.

And if you collect baseball memorabilia or simply love baseball history, don't dismiss this because it's located on a university campus and you've never heard of it.

That's exactly what I almost did.

I expected a small college sports museum.

Instead, I found myself looking at the glove and ball from the last out of a World Series, a handwritten Bo Jackson contract, historic Yankees memorabilia, deeply personal Babe Ruth pieces and the uniform Hank Aaron wore during one of baseball's most historic seasons.

But what I'll remember most isn't necessarily the monetary value of any of it.

It's the personal nature of the collection.

You frequently know who owned the object, why it mattered and how it got there.

That's unusual.

There are larger sports museums.

There are much more famous sports museums.

But few I've visited have made sports history feel this personal.

And to think I found the Fogelman Sports Museum at FAU completely by accident.