COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. - Merv Rettenmund gave up a chance of playing on America's Team to pursue his big league dream with America's national pastime.

A star athlete at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., Rettenmund signed his first professional baseball contract with the Baltimore Orioles organization not long before the former halfback was drafted in the 19th round (257th overall) by the Dallas Cowboys despite playing in just three football games his senior year.

"It's something I sure didn't expect," said Rettenmund during a tour of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum on Wednesday afternoon. "I don't know if I really enjoyed football enough to even think about doing something like that. I always planned on playing professional baseball, and I'm glad I got a chance to."

Rettenmund has spent the majority of his adult life in the game, first as a longtime outfielder then as an acclaimed hitting coach. But the reason he was in Cooperstown presented jim with a different baseball challenge: coaching a team of 12-year-olds at an area baseball camp.

"I would say we have at least three or four kids that more than likely will sign professional contracts," said Rettenmund about his team from Poway, Calif. "How far they go, I don't know."

While in the Hall of Fame, Rettenmund, his wife, Susan, and a granddaughter were able to look at a clipping and photo file from his long baseball life. His only previous visit to Cooperstown came as a San Diego Padres coach when the team faced the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1997 Hall of Fame Game at Doubleday Field.

"I think this is a place you have to spend months at," said Rettenmund, referring to the Hall of Fame. "It makes me very proud to have been a participant in Major League Baseball. I was very fortunate to spend 43 years in professional baseball and 30 years in the Major Leagues.

"I look back on it, and I guess you have good years and bad years in any job, and maybe I did have a couple bad years in baseball, but you always focus on the good times, and boy, were there sure a lot of them."

Rettenmund spent 13 years (1968-80) as a big league player with the Orioles, Cincinnati Reds, Padres and California Angels. And while he finished with 693 hits and a .271 lifetime batting average, most importantly he appeared in the postseason six years, won four pennants and was a part of World Series championships with the 1970 Orioles and 1975 "Big Red Machine" Reds.

"I could run, I could hit and I could throw. The ability to make the big leagues was easy," Rettenmund said. "And I was on good teams -- the Baltimore Orioles and the Cincinnati Reds."

Rettenmund followed up his playing career as a Major League hitting coach with the Angels (1981), Texas Rangers (1983-85), Oakland A's (1989-90), Atlanta Braves (2000-01), Detroit Tigers (2002) and Padres (1991-99, 2006-07).

"A couple years ago, I was a coach with the Padres, and I wasn't feeling very well, so they let me go home for the rest of my career," Rettenmund said. "The surprising thing is I do not miss the game. I do miss Spring Training a little bit, and I do miss it when they go to exciting cities like Philadelphia or New York. And truthfully, at 66 years old, I have a lot of energy, but not enough energy to coach in the Major Leagues anymore.

"My wife and I have been married 44 years, and we spent 43 years in baseball. And that's a lot of packing and a lot of airplanes and a lot of travel."

Rettenmund over the years either played with or coached numerous Hall of Famers, from former teammates such as Frank Robinson, Johnny Bench and Nolan Ryan or pupils like Tony Gwynn.

"But the best player I've ever seen was Jose Canseco. And probably the smartest player I've ever seen, too," Rettenmund said. "To say that, people will think I've been drinking, but he had it all as far as baseball went.

"That's why baseball is what baseball is -- you can't figure it out."