By Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com

Tuesday was opening day for Legends’ Attic, a sports memorabilia museum that will make local Los Angeles Dodgers and Lakers fans weep with joy.

Located at 619 W. Foothill Blvd., steps west of the DoubleTree Hotel, Legends’ Attic is part love letter to LA’s sports teams, sports museum, art gallery, sports card collectibles shop, and perhaps the greatest man cave ever assembled.

The multifaceted museum is a collaboration between longtime Claremont resident Eddie Allizadeh, Mike Caposio, and legendary retired Dodgers pitcher Orel Hershiser — all collectors — to bring iconic memorabilia to Claremont. It also has the blessing of Emmy Award-winning baseball analyst and former Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti, Laguna Beach-based sports artist Dave Hobrecht, and several others in the sports business.

The seed for Legends’ Attic was planted when the Dodgers sought to induct Hershiser into their Legend of Dodger Baseball class in 2023.

“They wanted to do a display at Dodger Stadium in their main concourse,” Eddie Allizadeh said. So he and Hershiser put their heads together and gathered artifacts. “We ended up going through his attic, and some of the things that we put out I’m looking at it like, ‘Man, you got fantastic stuff here.’ And here I am gloating about my personal collection.Then I said, ‘What if we did something?’”

A year later, Legends’ Attic was born.

Legends’ Attic manager Christian Allizadeh inside the Los Angeles Lakers room Tuesday morning. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

The name derives from Hershiser’s 2023 honor from the Dodgers and a cliché that avid sports collectors have memorabilia stored in their attics. It’s also not lost on the owners that the store’s intials — L.A. — just happen to pay tribute the city most represented in the collection.

Though big names are associated, Legends’ Attic is essentially a family-owned business, with owner Eddie Allizadeh, his nephew Christian Allizadeh the manager and regional vice president of the brand, and his niece Andrea Allizadeh as vice president of marketing.

Fans of Los Angeles-based teams the Dodgers, Lakers, Angels, USC, UCLA, and others outside the region have a chance to view some iconic finds among the 2,500-square foot museum’s six rooms, including one full of autographed football helmets, a Lakers room with a signed basketball from the late Kobe Bryant, pinball machines that were once in MLB locker rooms, and much more.

It also boasts two Dodgers rooms, one filled with works by Hobrecht, and another featuring iconic baseball cards, postcards signed by the late Jackie Robinson, Hershiser’s 1988 Cy Young Award, and the 1989 contract that at the time made him the highest paid player in baseball.

Legends’ Attic also showcases a signed cleat from soccer legend Lionel Messi, an autographed Alex Morgan U.S. Women’s National Team jersey, and a limited edition Superman vs. Muhammad Ali DC comic book from 1978.

Though much of its content focuses on Los Angeles, Eddie Allizadeh and his partners have Claremont roots, which made opening the store here an easy choice.

“I’ve lived here my whole life. We’re the City of Trees and degrees and we have a lot of restaurants and salons, but this is different and unique for this city,” he said.

“The All-Time Manager,” a charcoal and pastel painting depicting legendary Dodgers executives, managers, and players hangs in the Dave Hobrecht room at Legends’ Attic. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo

“We’ve got something for everybody,” said Christian Allizadeh. “We want to get as many people in here as possible just to try and create that great fan experience where people can come and kind of let loose and just be a kid.”

With so many items, Eddie and Christian Allizadeh said they find it hard to choose a favorite piece.

“I think I’ve probably tried answering that myself for like the last couple of weeks,” Christian Allizadeh said. “Every day I’ll walk through and I’ll be like, ‘I didn’t even know this was here.’”

There’s a running joke at the store in that nothing is for sale. But everything is of course for sale, though it may hurt Eddie Allizadeh to part with it.

“If we can find and vet the right buyer to where we know [the item’s] going to be taken care of, displayed and maybe even donated back to a museum, we’d be foolish not to consider that,” Eddie Allizadeh said. “I don’t want it to be the narrative of everything has a price, but I mean we want to find the right ownership of everything.”

Collectors looking to sell their memorabilia are encouraged to come by Legends’ Attic for an appraisal, Eddie Allizadeh said, and to chat up the proprietors. “It’s about the story,” he added. “That’s kind of what we wanted to create, our own sports talk show in a house full of awesome decorations, and then if people wanted to buy things that’s fantastic too. It doesn’t even feel like a job to us. We are just having a good time.”

Legend’s Attic is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays, and 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. It’s closed Sunday and Monday. To schedule a private viewing call (909) 929-8353.