12:29 p.m.: We can't save Rosenblatt Stadium. But here's the next best thing: home plate is going to Cooperstown.

They will dig up home plate after tonight's baseball finale at the old gem on the hill. The Omaha Royals will then send it to the Baseball Hall of Fame, along with an official scorecard of the Royals-Round Rock game, the lineup cards, a program, a cleated shoe and the final baseball. Assuming someone doesn't pocket it.

But having home plate go to Hall of Fame is the greatest thing to happen in this long goodbye to Rosenblatt.

For one, it puts Omaha in Cooperstown. Sure, Bob Gibson is already there. So is Richie Asburn, of Tilden, Neb., a small town just west of Norfolk. But now all Omahans, of different generations going back to 1948, can walk into the Hall of Fame and see themselves in that home plate.

For decades, that stadium on the hill has been the heart of this city, where the College World Series was held, where we drove by so many times and sneaked a peek up to the stadium, where Omahans spent much of their lives.

The heart of a baseball park is the home plate. It's the centerpiece, the place where everyone in the game tries to go. There's something sacred about touching home. And though they've changed home plates many, many times at Rosenblatt, it's sort of a symbolic piece that binds the years together. Think of all the great names who played at Rosenblatt since 1948. Most, if not all, touched home plate.

Thanks to Jason Kinney, the O Royals director of merchandise, for making this happen. Kinney grew up around Cooperstown, N.Y. He knows the folks at the Hall of Fame. He contacted them and offered some Rosenblatt artifacts. Their curators met and voted unanimously to accept.

It was a bit of a flier. The only minor-league presence in the Hall of Fame is something from the Durham Bulls, a connection to the movie "Bull Durham." This is a unique thing. But then, Rosenblatt is a unique stadium, one of the last of the throwbacks.

Tonight will be sad and special and memorable for anyone who ever saw a baseball game up on the hill. They're expecting 18,000 and they might get more. Steve Rosenblatt will hit a final ball and there will be fireworks and the lights on the hill will dim. But it's good to know that Rosenblatt will live on, in a place where baseball lives forever.

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