Hall of Fame Weekend Brings Out Our Love for the Game
On June 12, 1939 the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum opened its doors for the first time in picturesque Cooperstown, New York. Seventy five years later, as the Museum celebrates its Diamond Anniversary, the definitive repository for baseball history is going strong, as it closes in on 16 million visitors who have made the pilgrimage to Baseball Mecca since Babe Ruth and 11 others gave their induction speeches, christening the first sports Hall of Fame in America.
I am often asked how the Museum continues to be successful, year-in and year-out. The simple answer is relevance. The Museum is forever evolving. As America evolves, so does baseball. And as baseball evolves, so too does the Hall of Fame. After all, it remains our National Pastime.
Football on 17 Sundays in the fall is incredibly popular. But Baseball and its 162-game schedule remains our National Pastime. It continues to be front and-center in American culture. Music, books, film, television, theater, poetry, nomenclature, and even the Oval Office borrow from baseball. As an everyday part of our lives, baseball has helped to shape, and in some cases define, American culture and values.
The Cooperstown museum contains 50,000 square feet of public galleries, theaters and activity spaces. It is truly a state-of-the art living, breathing, experiential history museum, using baseball as a lens to demonstrate how baseball and America have grown up together since Abraham Lincoln, was in office.
The modest three-story red brick building on Main Street house three entities under one roof. A Museum & Library, dedicated to documenting and presenting baseball history; an education hub, which reaches school children in all 50 states, Canada and Latin America every year, and; a Hall of Fame, a shrine to the game’s legends.
Our mission is straight-forward: Preserving history, honoring excellence and connecting generations. These six words have served to guide the venerable home to baseball since the get-go.
We preserve history by collecting game-used relics from the game’s defining moments, chronicling our game as it unfolds on the diamond and American culture. The collection contain 40,000 artifacts and its archive has another three million items, collectively serving as baseball’s version of the Smithsonian and Library of Congress rolled into one. Every single item has been donated to the non-profit Museum. Hank Aaron and Tom Seaver are in the process of donating their baseball collections to the Museum. Ichiro, who has made a strong case for baseball immortality, has been to Cooperstown six times and has donated more artifacts than any current player.
From the legendary baseball purportedly used by Abner Doubleday In 1839, to Ty Cobb’s spikes, to Roberto Clemente’s 3000th hit bat to the caps Derek Jeter and Mike Trout wore in this year’s mid-summer Classic, baseball’s magnificent history is front and center.
Generations are seamlessly connected. It’s not unusual to find a grandparent, parent and child meandering through the Museum and chatting quietly. The youngster will blurt out, “David Ortiz is the greatest. The father will quip, “but you never saw Wade Boggs play. And grandma will chime in, “but Teddy Ballgame was the best of them all.” Three generations. One language. Baseball.
Excellence is honored annually through induction. This year, managers Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre were enshrined, along with 300-game winners Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux, and slugger Frank Thomas. With their inclusion, the Hall of Fame honor rolls now stands at 306. Umpires, executives and Negro leagues legends comprise the balance of those recognized with a bronze plaque.
For players, earning election to the Hall of Fame is not an easy task: only 1% of the 18,000 or so men to have worn a major league uniform have been honored. There are plaques for 211 players. Managers? There are now all of 22. That’s it.
For many of the 66 living Hall of Famers, returning for Hall of Fame Weekend each summer is meaningful, for a variety of reasons. They love returning to their home away from home. “Everything slows down in Cooperstown,” said Andre Dawson. “That’s what I love about being here.”
Hall of Fame Weekend is a great family weekend. Many Hall of Fame members bring their wives, children, grandchildren and friends. The baseball community attends in full force. Dignitaries. Regular fans. Everyone seemingly wants to rub elbows with greatness, experience the innate beauty of Cooperstown and fully enjoy the aura of a time not forgotten.
As Whitey Herzog so aptly stated during his induction speech in 2010, “Getting into Cooperstown is like going to heaven before you die.”
Brooks Robinson has fond memories of his 1983 induction. “I could not wait to meet the great Bill Dickey, because he grew up in Little Rock, just like I did. I had a paper route as a kid, and whenever I would get to Dickey’s house, I would air mail his paper with a little extra zip. Meeting him was a thrill, and I was surprised to learn that Bill Terry came back that year, just to meet me. Wow!”
The camaraderie matters a great deal. Robin Yount considers his Hall of Fame colleagues teammates now: “Coming to Cooperstown is like being back in the clubhouse again. It’s a great feeling.”
One would imagine that the egos would be sizable among the Hall of Famers, given the enormity of their career accomplishments. Not the case. Egos are kept in check, as the common thread among them all is humility, with Cooperstown being the great equalizer. There’s no one bigger in the room. They are ALL big. And they are all respectful.
Tom Glavine and his family arrived in Cooperstown and walked into the Otesaga Resort Hotel, the Hall of Fame’s headquarters for the Weekend each year. “Hey dad! There’s Ozzie Smith over there. Look! Robin Yount! Check out all these guys. This is awesome! What are they doing here?” Tom just smiles and tells his kids that he too, is now one of them, hardly believing that is possible.
Glavine wasn’t sure what it would be like to meet Nolan Ryan and Bob Gibson. “Their personas on mound were tough. I was a bit nervous. Both could not have been more welcoming.”
After Bruce Sutter was elected in 2006, I would check in with him periodically by telephone in the ensuing months. “Every time I look at the phone and see the 607 area code, I think you are calling to tell me you recounted and I am out,” All I could do was smile and assure him that his election was very real.
I always enjoy my conversations with Paul Molitor. This year we were talking about the passing of Tony Gwynn, which hit us both like a ton of bricks. I confessed that among my favorite stats from Tony’s career were his 297 3-hit games juxtaposed one career three-strikeout game. To which Molitor responded, “Can you believe Tony could have gone 0-1200 and still had a .300 career average?” (It is actually 0-1182).
Rod Carew, he of seven batting titles. has an amazing six holes in one. I asked him which was easier to achieve. “Batting title. No question.”
Hall of Fame Weekend is very much about reminiscing. Take Carlton Fisk, with whom I had breakfast on Saturday morning on the patio of the famed Leatherstocking Golf Course, which overlooks Otsego Lake.
With no prompting, Pudge turns to me and says, “I remember the first time I went to the mound to talk to a pitcher, and it was Gary Peters. He was a veteran with a ton of complete games, and getting hit hard that day. I figured I was supposed to take charge. So I strut out there thinking I can calm him down. Peters says, ‘What the f$&% are you doing out here??? Get off my mound!’ I was speechless. I walked back quietly and squatted behind the plate.” Four decades later, the memory is still fresh.
On Sunday at noon, the Hall of Fame members gather in the lobby of the Otesaga, to get ready to head to the Induction site. It is always a veritable “whose who” in baseball, and often, the guest list can rival the star power.
Tom Brokaw, a legend in his own right, and the man who wrote the forward to the Hall of Fame’s 75th anniversary compendium, ‘The Hall’ said, “As an American Legion shortstop who couldn’t get his girlfriend to a game, much less a scout, I was Walter Mitty all weekend,” referring to novelist James Thurber’s fictional mild-mannered character who lived a life of fantasy.
There’s no Starbucks in Cooperstown (we do have Stagecoach Coffee, a fabulous local bistro), but Howard Schultz made the trip with his son, Jordan, as guests of La Russa. “You look across the room and see Sandy Koufax AND Al Kaline. Meeting them was humbling.”
And the great Billy Crystal, whose passion for baseball is well documented, adds, “It was like my baseball cards came to life. Shaking hands with Gaylord Perry and joking ‘how come your hand is dry?’ and him saying, " ’Cause I'm not pitching." To chat with Ernie Banks, and see Koufax talking to Marichal and watching all these greats love being with each other, is a beautiful thing to be a part of.”
As the clock moved closer to show time, we made our way on to the buses, which would take us to the Clark Sports Center, home of the Induction Ceremony. I sat behind Maddux, in front of Glavine, and next to Kaline.
As Doug Harvey stepped on to the bus, Kaline whispered to no one in particular, “he’s God, you know.”
Meanwhile, the mild-mannered Maddux quipped, “this is the first time I’ve worn a tie since Bobby was mad at us for some reason once and made us wear ties on a flight.”
Giving a Hall of Fame acceptance speech is a daunting task, especially for those who make their living through their actions, rather than words. And the Hall of Fame members do their part in the months leading up to remind new electees not to speak too long.
Mike Schmidt and I were in the Hall of Fame Plaque Gallery on Friday morning for a Golf Channel program being filmed with Johnny Bench, Glavine and him. As we stood by his plaque, I asked him what he was thinking about. “The speech. I am still consumed by how nervous I was.” His speech was delivered in 1995.
Yogi Berra was not able to attend this year. When I asked him if he wanted me to tell Torre anything, he said, ”tell him good luck, And keep it short.”
This year’s class had an audience of 48,000 fans in front of them and 48 Hall of Fame members behind them. Maddux found the experience humbling. Tony LaRussa asked if it was possible to be “de-ducted.” After the Ceremony, Torre, who had passed Miller Huggins on the Yankee all-time managerial win list during his tenure in the South Bronx, received a text stating “Thanks for not mentioning me. Miller.” It was from Crystal.
With speeches delivered, it was time to gather for the team photo on the Otesaga’s back lawn. Glavine sees Seaver and smiles, relieved his speech is over. Said #41: “Not so fast. It’s not official until your plaque is hung in the gallery, Mr. Glavine.” Seaver, by the way, always stops by the plaques of Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson when he visits Cooperstown. “Good to see you boys,” he says, as he rubs their hats.
As Hall of Famers laugh and chat while waiting for the annual Sunday Night dinner to begin, which is attended only by them, the Commissioner and me, Johnny Bench sits the new members down, in rocking chairs, on the back veranda of the Otesaga, overlooking Otsego Lake and the 18th green of Leatherstocking Golf Course.
He reminds them who they are, where they are, and just how special of a fraternity they have just joined. He encourages them to wear the Hall of Fame mantle well. And to enjoy the experience, because there’s nothing like it.
For Johnny, it’s another visit to the mound. And for the newest members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, it’s the capstone to a new way of life. That of a Hall of Famer.
Jeff Idelson is the president for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum