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Friday, May 26, 2023
More than two dozen former Major League Baseball stars are getting together to re-live the glory days sandlot-style.
The annual Hall of Fame Classic returns on Saturday, May 27, at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown featuring a representative of every MLB team. Managing the rosters are non-other than six Baseball Hall of Famers (see below).
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1. You can keep your massive haul Posted: May 26, 2023 at 02:52 PM (#6130244)Not sure "legends game" is an accurate moniker for this particular one. Do people actually show up to watch Bryan Holaday don the mask one last time?
#5 is friggin hilarious. I snorted when I laughed.
now I have to credit the originator.
in the 1990s, Curtis G. Bunn was an NBA writer for the NY Daily News.
probably this is from 1994.
because the Knicks hadn't been to the NBA Finals in a generation, many of the area writers never took a day off from Knicks beating Nets in 4 (on a Friday, next round started on Sunday), into a Knicks in 7 and another Knicks in 7 and ultimately another 7 game series - Rockets in 7.
so at least 2 dozen writers from NY/NJ worked at least 30 consecutive days - with anywhere from 40 pct to 60 pct of those days on the road, depending on the assignments.
Curtis finally, finally had a day off coming with a fill-in assigned. I think it was a Friday night game, and he would get to skip a Saturday practice. he filed his post-game story, and he was DONE.
so as he exited, he turned to the remaining scribes in the media room and so colorfully explained exactly how 'off' he was going to be on Saturday from caring about that practice - in just that fashion.
one of my favorite quotes ever, and he had a light southern accent that only added to the quality of the delivery.
That was Hunter Dozier. Brian (no relation AFAIK) hasn't played since 2020.
It's a "typical" old-timer sort of lineup (except for Ed). And I'm sure they knew they were the "stars" -- who can forget the home run derby X thing in which Londoners were gonna get excited about Nick Swisher. I'll admit I don't really understand why the HoF does it other than I suppose it gives them an excuse to be on MLB network for a couple of hours, letting MLBN interview new inductees and any genuinely famous players in for the weekend (which would be quite a few). But sure, nobody's making the trip to Cooperstown for HoF weekend to see Rajai Davis.
"Hall of Famers Bert Blyleven, Rollie Fingers, Fergie Jenkins, Jim Kaat, Jack Morris and Lee Smith will serve as coaches and managers for the teams. Players who are scheduled to appear at the 2023 Hall of Fame Classic include..."
So if you go to the game ($15 for the best seats), you can probably get the autographs of most, if not all, of six Hall of Fame pitchers that would generally connect with Baby Boomer and many GenX-aged baseball fans.
I used to go to the Induction Weekend ceremony most years (I grew up about four hours from Cooperstown, then went to college about 2.5 hours from the HOF). One year I went with my then-serious-girlfriend (now wife of 21+ years) who was a very casual baseball fan at the time. She liked the town a lot - the shops, the quaintness of Doubleday Field, restaurants, B&Bs;, the lake, etc. - but it was so crowded on Induction Weekend that you couldn't really enjoy many of those elements. So she hasn't been back since.
I would bet an overwhelming percentage of Cooperstown's tourist dollars and visitors come in a very small window of time each year, and they would like to find ways to draw even modest amounts of additional baseball fans to town at other points of the year.
My wife and I were talking about doing a weekend in Cooperstown where we could do some baseball tourism, and then some non-baseball tourism (Brewery Ommegang is one of the best microbreweries in the country, for example), but we don't want to have to go when the weather is sort of cold. So I could see us picking a weekend like this to go in the future - nice weather, it's a 3-day weekend, there'll be a little extra buzz in town because of the Hall of Famers being around - but it won't be so many extra visitors that it will be impossible to get a hotel room or a table at a restaurant.
And it'd be fun to ask Jack Morris how he did such a uniquely good job of "pitching to the score" (ha,ha).
Yes, that's definitely become a big part of the pull. I know of several families who's kids have traveled pretty great distances to play there.
I also have had an experience similar to #17, where you walk over to Doubleday Field and find a pretty underwhelming group of adults playing baseball poorly, and you're like, "Is this a pickup game?"
On the other hand, I once watched part of a game there during an induction weekend in the 1990s, and sat two rows behind George Steinbrenner, and you look around and realize there are recognizable (some obviously, some vaguely) all over the place. Like once when I literally bumped into Lou Brock and was like, "Sorry about that...hey, are you Lou Brock?" Or the time I just shot the breeze for 10 minutes with Al Downing. We talked about Aaron's 715th HR, pitching for the Dodgers, and how his nephew (with whom I went to grad school) was doing.
You don't get anything like that with the other Hall of Fames, and that's because the town is so small.
Cooperstown, New York (baseball): 1,794
Canton, Ohio (football): 70,872
Springfield, Massachusetts (basketball): 155,929
Frisco, Texas (soccer): 200,509
Toronto, Ontario (hockey): Pretty big, eh?
EDIT: The US Hockey Hall of Fame is in Eveleth, Minnesota, population 3,718...which is still more than double that of Cooperstown!
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