Kerr, according to the correspondence, responded with an even grander notion, in which the cremated remains of other members of the Hall could be brought to Cooperstown as well. “If there are no legal or technical reasons why it should not be done,” he said, “I would think that a repository for the ashes of the immortals would add immeasurably to the creation of a shrine of baseball.”

Transforming the Hall of Fame into more than a museum was a bold thought, although it might have struck some as a little unsettling.

But Clark and Kerr were not kidding, according to the correspondence. They asked Harry St. Clair Zogbaum, the architect who had designed the annex, to sketch a large, outdoor stone memorial for Gehrig, according to documents in the Hall’s library. Perhaps that would have been where the urn of ashes would actually have ended up. They also asked the village of Cooperstown, which is in upstate New York, for approval to bring cremated remains into the Hall.

Meanwhile, Kerr traveled to Valhalla to see the Gehrig grave site and reported to Clark in early 1950 that a cemetery executive told him that he would be “very sorry to see Lou Gehrig removed” but that he agreed it was more appropriate for him to be in Cooperstown.

At some point after Gehrig’s parents first proposed sending their son’s ashes to Cooperstown, Eleanor herself embraced the idea. She was the guardian of her husband’s legacy, kept meticulous scrapbooks devoted to his life and career and vetted the script of “The Pride of the Yankees,” the movie made about his life and death.