AUBURN - From sandlot baseball and after work leagues to high school athletics all the way to the Doubledays, Cayuga County has always been dedicated to its sports.

It is this idea that the Cayuga Museum will be celebrating starting July 7 with its new exhibit “Sports in Cayuga County.”

“There is a long tradition,” museum curator Carrie Barrett said. “We plan out our exhibits a year in advance. This is our major exhibit of the year. And we wanted to do something that looked at the history of sports in the region and their impact.” The exhibit will take a look at all areas of sports from softball, bowling and other recreational sports to the evolution of sports equipment.

“Places like the Columbian Rope factory sponsored a lot of leagues,” Barrett said. “They would sponsor bowling leagues and baseball

and different sports. In the exhibit we have things like T-shirts

from their bowling league. We have a football jersey going back to 1910 with the old leather helmet,

and lacrosse sticks and tennis racquets.”

But the exhibit delves into more than just the evolution of the sports, it takes a look at the social impact sports have had since the early 1800s when the country and Auburn itself were growing and defining themselves.

“We wanted to look at how sports helped shape things,” Barrett said. “Games like baseball have been a big part of social change and integration of different ethnic groups.”

Barrett said that one of the most unique demonstrations of social change she has seen from assembling the exhibit was born of a group from the 1880s called the American Wheelmen.

According to Barrett at that time cycling was very popular with numerous clubs, when a bicycle was a rather expensive item and before automobiles became the prevalent form of transportation.

“These clubs brought a lot of races and other events to the area,” Barrett said. “They also had indoor baseball and softball leagues. They were advocates of good social movements. This was before there were paved roads and they were often muddy and hard to ride on. And the American Wheelmen started a campaign to make the roads better; this led to the creation of the department of transportation.”

The exhibit also pays tribute to some of Auburn's better known local sports heros.

“We have things like Ormie King's varsity jacket,” Barrett said. “Items from Leo Pinckney, Bob Dean, Jerome “Brud” Holland, the first African American to go to Cornell. I think people will really enjoy this part of the exhibit. They will get to see people they know, or their grandfather. I think it will give people

the feeling of being connected to a piece of our own history and seeing that light of recognition and that feeling is what this exhibit is all about.”