Anticipation builds as Induction Weekend begins

Two days remain before the National Baseball Hall of Fame raises the total of elected members to 346 with the upcoming enshrinement of four new members to the game’s greatest team.

The official start of the 2024 Hall of Fame Induction Weekend began early Friday morning with Turn Two with Ozzie Smith, a fundraiser started by the Education Ambassador for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum the year after his Hall of Fame induction in 2002.

Now in its 21st year, Turn Two supports the Hall of Fame’s educational mission and the Ozzie Smith Diversity Scholarships for the Museum’s Frank and Peggy Steele Internship Program for Youth Leadership Development.

This year, Smith’s guest instructors included Hall of Famers Jim Kaat, Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen as his guests.

“It’s one of those things that I just continued doing when I started playing, the importance of giving back, and it just continued here,” said Smith, bedecked in a Cardinals uniform under brilliantly blue skies at Doubleday Field on Friday morning. “And it’s continued here on a higher level because we’re now able to take the guys that played the game the right way and bring them out here and give people an opportunity to visit with them on a one-on-one level. I think that’s what fans look for.”

Twenty-eight Museum supporters participated this year. Since founding Turn Two more than 20 years ago, Smith has helped generate more than $275,000 in support of the Hall of Fame.

For a pair of recent Hall of Famers, Class of 2023 inductees McGriff and Rolen, this year’s time in Cooperstown is relatively calm compared to the hustle and bustle associated with an Induction Weekend you’re intimately involved in.

“You see that smile on my face, don’t you? It’s beautiful. Because now I can relax,” McGriff said. “Get up here this morning and help out Ozzie and then after that I can play some golf and kick back and I can look at (Class of 2024 members Jim) Leyland and (Adrian) Beltré and (Todd) Helton and (Joe) Mauer and say to myself, ‘I know what you guys are feeling right now.’ This is great. I hopped on a plane yesterday to come here and we had a five-hour delay in Atlanta. But still you’re just relaxed and thinking about how you hope the weekend goes. It's just different.

“And even though we played against each other, you’re still in the heat of battle trying to beat them. So, they come to first base and you chit chat here and there, but you really don’t get to really know a person. So now being back here, you just get to hang out and you really get to meet the other Hall of Famers.”

The slugging first baseman with 493 home runs then relayed a story about a mishap about his own Induction Weekend last year.

“Nobody really knows but last year we flew up Wednesday of the induction week,” McGriff recalled. “And when I pack my clothes I always put my suitcase in the trunk, but last year I put my suit in the passenger seat right behind me. So, I get out of car with the wife and we hop on the plane and we come here and then I’m like, ‘Where's my suit?’ It’s the suit I’m going to wear for my induction. I left my suit in Tampa, so they luckily, because of the connection, they were able to fly my suit up the next day so I’d have it for the induction. Can you imagine if I didn't have my suit last year for the induction? I didn't forget anything this year.”

As for any advice he’d relay to the Hall of Fame Class of 2024 members, McGriff said, “If I see them over the next couple of days I'd tell them come Sunday you'll be so happy once they get off stage. It was just awesome for me going on stage. I had to give everybody a high five. So that was cool. That was one of the priceless moments.”

From Rolen’s early perspective, this year is quite a bit less stressful without a doubt.

“I had about 20-30 people last time and we had golf clubs and wheelchairs and everything. My family, we just flew in yesterday and we're going to relax and enjoy ourselves. It’s going to be great,” Rolen said. “Everybody told me that the second year is always more enjoyable. I don’t know that it could be more enjoyable because last year was such a great thing for my entire family. And all of us being able to do it together was once in a lifetime.

“It seems like it all went by in a flash, to tell you the truth, but we're going to at least breathe a little better.”

Thinking back to his own induction, Rolen said the moment that sticks out was when Johnny Bench introduced his dad.

“My dad got to stand up as a Navy veteran and wave to everybody in the crowd,” he said. “And there’s 57 Hall of Famers behind me giving my dad a standing ovation right there. You can’t beat that.”

As for his induction speech, Rolen called it “a big deal because we're not speakers necessarily.”

“We don’t make a living out of doing that,” Rolen said. “I think you can relieve pressure by not trying to write a great speech and deliver a great speech. I realized when I was rehearsing that I can read this. It’s done. It’s written. It’s over with. It’s finished. It’s right here. I can read it.

“I’ve talked to the new inductees a little bit and I’ll see them along the way and if they have any questions about that speech, that would be my one thing: ‘Guys, you can read it. It's already done. The work is over.’”

For Kaat, 85, he treasures the opportunities to come back to Cooperstown at his age.

“I'm a late arrival at this Hall of Fame,” said the southpaw hurler who spent 25 seasons in the majors and was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 2022. “It's a thrill, even if I were not a Hall of Fame member, to come back to Cooperstown. Such a cool village and what it means to the game of baseball. I look forward to coming back here. It seems like I just left.

“I think when I got the call, I never realized the magnitude of being a Hall of Famer. You haven’t thrown a pitch in 30-some years and then they tell you’re in the Hall of Fame,” he added. “But what really hit me is when I was the first speaker, and I looked out in that field, and I think there were 35,000 people out there. I felt like Freddie Mercury at Live Aid. That was so impressive to see that many people that love baseball.”

Back at The Otesaga Resort Hotel on Friday afternoon, Hall of Famers and their families were still arriving to celebrate the induction of the four newest electees at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, the highlight of the weekend. Commiserating and catching up was the theme of the day, as those special individuals with bronze plaques made that special journey to Cooperstown. 

Also this weekend is the 2024 Awards Presentation, which will take place at 3 p.m. on Saturday, July 20 at Cooperstown’s Alice Busch Opera Theater. Joe Castiglione will receive the Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in broadcasting and Gerry Fraley will be posthumously honored with the BBWAA Career Excellence Award for meritorious contributions to baseball writing.

Castiglione, who has called Red Sox games on the radio for a record 42 seasons, is familiar with upstate New York, having earned an undergraduate degree at Colgate University and took his master’s degree at Syracuse University. After calling games for the Indians and Brewers, he joined the Red Sox radio team in 1983. The longest tenured broadcaster in Red Sox history, he was inducted into the franchise’s Hall of Fame in 2014.

“Anxiety is setting in,” he said with a smile, “but it’s been just amazing. I couldn’t imagine it being any sweeter. I’ve never been to a full induction weekend because we always had games to broadcast, but I did come over for Pedro Martínez's on Sunday morning and for David Ortiz on Sunday morning. Actually with Pedro, we had a Sunday night game, so I was able to go back and make it in the fifth inning. But this is totally different. When you’re one of the honorees it’s just a different world.”

As for his speech, Castiglione admits to thinking about it for a long time.

“I started putting words on my computer shortly after I find out in December. I’ve revised it many times. And I did the rehearsal here at the hotel and it's ready to go. It's a little longer than 10 minutes, but not much,” he said. “The speech is really a thank you to all the people that helped me. You never do these things on your own, starting from when I was at Colgate University and my mentors there, and in broadcasting throughout my career and people that I work with.”

And Castiglione, the 48th Frick Award honoree, knows he’s joining a prestigious group of broadcasting legends.

“And what’s especially pleasing to me is my hero, Mel Allen, was the first, so that makes it even more special. I’ve known so many of them, like Ernie Harwell, who was a mentor, and others I’ve known as good friends. I think the baseball broadcasters have their own fraternity and when you are voted in by them, it makes it even more special.”

Bill Francis is the senior research and writing specialist at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum