New and veteran Hall of Famers awed by Cooperstown

The time is almost here for the newest Hall of Famers.

But for the legends returning to Cooperstown for the third time or their 30th, the emotions still stir their imaginations.

“It’s always great,” said pitching great John Smoltz from the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2015, talking about returning for Hall of Fame Weekend. “It’s the four most relaxed days of the year. And you get to watch people go in. It’s so much better than actually doing it yourself and being nervous beyond belief.”

Smoltz, of course, has fond memories of Class of 2026 electee Andruw Jones patrolling center field as Atlanta Braves teammates from 1996 to 2007.

“It’s a long time coming for him. I get accused of being biased, but he’s the best I’ve ever seen in that position,” Smoltz said. “I know there’s Griffey, but I didn’t get to see him on a daily basis like I got to see Andruw Jones. He’s probably a big reason why I’m here. I don’t think I’d have had the career that I had, had he not been patrolling center field. I’m a flyball pitcher and sometimes I’d tell him he’s going to have a field day when I pitch.

“He was a special talent. We knew when he came to Spring Training, when we saw him, we knew the electricity he had off his bat, and everybody knew the defense was never going to disappoint.”

One Braves Hall of Famer who won’t be in Cooperstown is skipper Bobby Cox, elected to the Hall of Fame in 2014, who passed away on May 9, 2026, at the age of 84.

“Bobby meant the world to us,” Smoltz said. “Every player here knows what Bobby did for them personally. What he did for our organization will never be duplicated. What he did as the manager probably never gets duplicated in the era that we’re in. He was very revered by everyone. No one could ever say a bad thing about Bobby.”

The Wizard of Oz is true to this, not new to this. #HOFWKND pic.twitter.com/l6bZ1hTkIm

— National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum ⚾ (@baseballhall) July 24, 2026

The official start of the 2026 Hall of Fame Induction Weekend began Friday morning with Ozzie Smith’s Turn Two, a fundraiser started by Smith – 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 23rd 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 Leadership Development.

This year, Smith’s guest instructors included Hall of Famers Billy Wagner, Robin Yount and Tony Oliva.

With their decades of diamond experience, the heralded group of enshrinees, after beginning their day with a reception at the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Plaque Gallery, shared their wisdom with participants during a session of stories and instruction at historic Doubleday Field.

“The guys that get that H-O-F behind their name, and you can get them to come out and visit like this, I think makes it very special,” said Smith, the defensive wiz with the Cardinals who won a record 13 Gold Glove Awards at shortstop. “I haven’t had anybody say no yet, for over 20 years, so that’s pretty good.”

For Wagner, bedecked in his familiar Houston Astros jersey, any added pressure of being in Cooperstown this year compared to 2025 when he was inducted has dissipated.

“Well, knowing the ropes a little bit better is fun,” said Wagner, “and then not having to worry about a speech. That’s the biggest thing. I don’t feel like I’m sweating to death every time thinking about it. Now I can just kind of enjoy everybody around me.”

Wagner is one of a record 60 Hall of Famers scheduled to attend this year’s Induction Weekend.

“What a dream for me,” he said. “I’m a traditionalist anyway, and so anytime I get to be around these guys and just soak up the stories is great. I was telling my wife on the way up – it’s baseball heaven. How can it get any better?”

As for helping out Smith at his Turn Two event, Wagner explained “everybody loves Ozzie.”

“When I was coming up, I think one of the first people I played against was Ozzie right there near the end of his career,” Wagner said. “But my first All-Star game, my wife and I walked into a spot, and I really didn’t know anybody, and Ozzie walks up and was so good to me. So, anytime I can be around a great like Ozzie, I’m happy to do it.”

Others in Cooperstown for Hall of Fame Induction Weekend include Paul Hoynes, who was elected as the winner of the 2026 Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Career Excellence Award. The 2026 Awards Presentation will take place at 3 p.m. on Saturday at Cooperstown’s Alice Busch Opera Theater, where Joe Buck will receive the Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in broadcasting, Bill White will be honored with the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award and Rick Monday will be honored on the 50th anniversary of his rescue of the American flag at Dodger Stadium.

“It’s amazing,” said Hoynes, who joined the Indians/Guardians beat in 1983 for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I don’t know what I was expecting. I’ve talked to a lot of people about it, but it kind of goes above and beyond that. But we went through the dry run for the speech Thursday morning, and I feel a lot better about it now. I’m still nervous about it, but I feel a little better.

“When you’re here, first of all, it’s like what am I doing here? How did this happen? And second, it’s real now. My wife was saying, ‘Well, we’ve waited seven months for this, so we’re going now. Let’s go.’ So yeah, I’m excited.”

Coming soon to the @baseballhall Plaque Gallery 👀#HOFWKND pic.twitter.com/Nr7uavfdFq

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) July 24, 2026

A pair of Hall of Famers, Ted Simmons and Alan Trammell, traveled to Cooperstown together.

“Ted Simmons, who I drove in with from the airport with his wife, we said the same thing. ‘As long as we’re healthy, that we’ll be back again and again.’ It’s just the respect of the game,” Trammell said. “Obviously, it’s just an honor to be a part of this fraternity, and that I think that we owe it to the new classes each and every year that we should be here and show the respect. And so again, I don’t know how everybody feels about that, but I know that’s how I feel, and I’m sure many, many others.

“I was inducted in 2018, so this is eight years later, and what I found is that some of the guys, we didn’t fraternize in our era. That was just kind of the way it was, and so that was fine, but now as you come to the Hall of Fame, and you meet some of your fellow players, I think as we’ve all gotten older, I think most people will admit it that we’ve kind of loosened it up. We’re not as hardened and you’re not playing the game anymore. And guys are just regular guys, which is what you find out. That’s the wonderful thing. But they could play baseball, so that’s a special fraternity. And, again, it just never gets old. It’s like winning baseball games; it never gets old coming back.”

Simmons joked he’s looked forward to the Induction Weekend every year since he was about six years old: “But it took me about 70 to get in.”

“You think about who’s here, and you know you’re here because you’re supposed to be here, but I still feel like that little kid,” he added. “They tell me (Sandy) Koufax is coming again this year. Are you kidding me?

“When I look back at my induction, because for those who don’t remember, it was 2020 with COVID, and it took an extra year for me to give my speech, so that gorilla sits on your shoulders for a long time. But the speech itself is what I’ll always remember. One, it took so long to finally give it, and then when it’s over, you realize that you’re part of a membership that is just unlike any other.”

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