The Sports Museum which recently opened in Downtown LA is yet another reason to make a trip Downtown, especially when you consider all the sporting venues we now have and all the professional athletes we claim as native sons.

When I said I wanted to go to the opening of our Sports Museum, I was taunted with male adolescent jokes about athletic supporters, balls, cups (that should be a “girl’s” joke, by the way), and the smirking inquiry about my going in the Men’s Locker Room as a part of admission (there was no locker room). I had a lot of snappy retorts (pardon the pun), but I let the “ass slapping in the locker room scenario” quip pass. I just knew for certain I needed a new circle of friends with an interest in sports that extended beyond the width of their big screen and the width of their girth they accommodate to see that screen. Time to twist a wet towel and let one fly.

The Sports Museum is sort of a Ripley’s Believe It or Not meets the incredible history of sports in America meets the advancement of sports through technology meets a $30 million collection, and all made possible by one good ol’ boy Bronx guy who grew up in the shadow of Yankee Stadium. The museum is truly an adventure in cultural anthropology and social history.

When museum visionary Gary Cypres came to the mic after the obligatory city officials had their obligatory say and got their obligatory applause, the 65-year-old father of five told us, “I’m an excessive guy. I love to collect. It gives me great joy. It’s not necessarily the most expensive items that give you the greatest joy.” That’s the epitome of a humble understatement for a man who has collected over 10,000-plus pieces of sports memorabilia that’s worth over $30 million.

When his sports memorabilia collection reached 10,000 pieces and threatened to overflow their house, his wife told him to get it out. The man who went to Dartmouth and made his money in the finance, mortgage, and travel agency businesses did just that, developing the Sports Museum of Los Angeles. He spent $1 million bringing the building up to city code during five years of developing the museum. When this nondescript, off-the-beaten-path building in downtown Los Angeles recently opened, the who’s-who of sports were there, from Olympic medalists and celebrity athletes (you could identify them by their tattoos -– what happened to “just say no!”?) to the media, all there to honor and view this 32,000 square feet of American sports history with an emphasis on baseball, football, basketball, golf, cycling, bowling, and rowing.

”This is more of a history museum,” Cypres said. “I try to show how things progressed. Today, most kids don’t have any sense of history. They don’t understand the importance of Jackie Robinson in baseball or Bill Russell in basketball and what they went through. It’s good to go back in time.”

It’s all there in Cypres’s sports time machine: galleries dedicated to the New York Yankees (Bronx-born Cypres’s favorite team), the Boston Red Sox, the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and baseball cards from their beginnings in 1887. Younger visitors might be surprised to see posters and baseball cards from the era when smoking was closely tied to baseball, with players like Lloyd Waner of the Pittsburgh Pirates boasting in a Lucky Strike ad, “Luckies fine flavor is enjoyable … and they never cut my wind.”

Ruth’s gallery includes his passion for hunting, with his shotgun and long raccoon coat on display. The Babe’s 1934 tour of Japan is featured, including his uniform — the only one known to exist, Cypres claims — and a black-and-white photo of Ruth in the outfield holding a glove in his right hand and a parasol in his left. Cypres has an extensive DiMaggio collection, including the ball that extended the Yankee Clipper’s hitting streak to a record 56 games. Cypres relishes the background of everything in his collection, so he also owns the ball that would have been DiMaggio’s 57th consecutive hit — snared by Cleveland infielder Ken Keltner — and what would have been No. 58, which started a 12-game hitting streak by DiMaggio. Home-run king Barry Bonds rates a brief mention, with the signed jersey and bat from home run No. 534 on display, along with the ball from No. 755 that tied Hank Aaron’s record. Cypres loves models, so he has detailed versions of Chicago’s Comiskey Park, Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, and New York’s Polo Grounds. Other exhibits show how sports uniforms and equipment have evolved over the years, with early examples of antique football helmets, tennis rackets, bicycles, gray wool baseball uniforms that eventually gave way to today’s bright colors, and baskets with bottoms that required a ladder to retrieve the ball. The museum traces the evolution of sports as entertainment, with sports-themed arcade and board games dating from the late 1800s and giant posters from sports-focused movies. Los Angeles Lakers fans won’t see Kobe Bryant, but a life-size version of Shaquille O’Neal in his old Lakers uniform — including a ‘Man of Steel’ tattoo on his bulging left arm — dominates the gallery on the NBA’s best centers. Yao Ming’s Houston Rockets uniform — nearly the size of a flag — hangs from the wall.

Cypres hopes to open the museum to cash-strapped charities for fundraising events and, even before opening day, Cypres envisions adding another 14,000 square feet of exhibits to include things he has in storage on the second floor, like hockey memorabilia. He wants to add boxing, and one of his sons asked him why snowboarding and surfing aren’t included. “This is a beginning,” said Cypres, who designed the displays himself. “I believe being in Los Angeles and being in one of the great sports capitals, we can build a great sports museum here. All the halls of fame started out much smaller than this.” He added with a secretive, shy, sly smile, “And, I’ve got plenty to show.” I wonder if his wife knows…