Museum has thousands of sports memories on display

"I don't know," said Gary Cypres, founder and curator of the downtown museum that will open to the public on Nov. 28. "Let's find out." And, with boyish delight, he tears open the top package.

It is a baseball for the 65-year-old businessman's already substantial Joe DiMaggio collection. No, it isn't the ball that extended DiMaggio's hitting streak to the record 56 games (Cypres owns that one too, though). It is the ball that would have taken the streak to 57 -- had Cleveland Indians infielder Ken Keltner not snared it.

"Anyone could think of acquiring No. 56," said Cypres, who purchased the ball at auction. "What intrigues me is what happened next."

He also has what would have been No. 58, the start of a 12-game DiMaggio hitting streak.

The Brooklyn-born Cypres has similar back stories for just about every item in his 10,000-piece collection, acquired over more than 20 years. The museum has had visitors over the last few years -- but by invitation only. And they say they continue to be stunned by the contents of this place.

"I don't know of any other collection in the world that has the depth and variety of what Gary has," said David Kohler, president of SCP Auctions, which recently auctioned off (to another collector) a T206 Honus Wagner baseball card for $2.8 million.

"He's got football, basketball and baseball, but he's also got bowling pins, early 18th-century tennis rackets and that game room with all those arcade and board games."

As David Hunt, owner of an Exton, Pa.-based sports memorabilia auction house, put it: "A lot of people talk about opening this kind of museum, but nobody ever does it."

The museum's sweet spot is an extensive Dodgers collection that fills a room in the nondescript building not far from Staples Center.

Visitors can gawk at a champagne bottle, glass and handful of infield dirt that select guests were given on the day Ebbets Field opened for big league play. There is an original Ebbets Field turnstile, musical instruments from the Brooklyn Dodgers' fabled marching band, a few grandstand seats and even the logo of the demolition company that knocked the old ballpark down.

Former Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley has described the collection as "the best that I know of."