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MLB Cuts the Hall of Fame from its Schedule
May 15, 2008
When the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres take to the diamond at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, New York on July 16, 2008, it will mark the end of a major league tradition that began during the 1939 opening of Baseball’s Hall of Fame. In addition to the ceremonies, two teams managed by Hall of Famers Eddie Collins and Honus Wagner played an exhibition game at Doubleday. Although already retired, Babe Ruth was a member of the American League team. Other players, stars of the day, on both teams featured future Hall of Famers Lefy Grove, Charlie Gehringer, Mel Ott, Hank Greenberg, Billy Herman, Joe Medwick, and Lloyd Waner. The following year, regular major league teams began playing in the exhibition, with the Cubs beating the Boston Red Sox, 10-9.
Over the years, more than fifty future members of the Hall have played before the fans in the small stadium built in 1920 and which to this day has no lights. The names like Aaron, Mantle, Williams, Musial, and DiMaggio echo with the legendary feats and stories that have made the game a part of first American, then international, culture. They were managed by future Hall of Fame skippers like Casey Stengel, Connie Mack, Leo Durocher, Walter Alston, Joe Cronin, and Sparky Anderson. The games are still played today as Abner Doubleday (or so the legend goes) first did under the sun.
Baltimore third baseman Brooks Robinson was on the field at Doubleday in 1961 when a PA announcement during the game informed him that he had become a father for the first time. His son would be in attendance when Robinson was inducted in 1983. In 1965, the St. Louis Cardinals called up a rookie Southpaw named Steve Carlton to start the game against Minnesota. Carlton, who would enter the Hall twenty-nine years later, went the distance while striking out ten Twins. Among this years inductees will be manager Dick Williams, who as a player homered in the 1963 Hall of Fame game.
However, Major League Baseball, in the same year that it sent the Red Sox and Oakland A’s across the Pacific to open the regular season with a two-game series in Japan, has announced that it would no longer be sending teams to play an exhibition game in upstate New York. The organization cited increasing difficulty with scheduling conflicts in an age where jet travel has long replaced the trains of the earlier decades.
Over the years, games have been cancelled or shortened due to rain, The 1945 contest did not take place because of war restrictions. In 1989, the Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds were to play during the week when two of their respective icons, Carl Yastrzemski and Johnny Bench, were to enter the Hall. However, the Reds remained stuck in Montreal due to aircraft problems. Undaunted, the Sox split their roster into two teams, “Boston” and the “Yastrzemskis”, and played a seven-inning game that ended in a 4-4 tie and featured home runs by future Hall of Famer Wade Boggs (2005), potential future Hall of Famer Jim Rice, and future Cleveland Indians manager Eric Wedge.
In more recent years, the major league exhibitions have been pushed back to May or June to better coincide with the major league schedule. Another trend has been to limit the major league stars to a few innings at the start and let minor league call-ups play out the remainder.
How fitting that it has been minor league teams from the New York-Penn League who have played exhibition games during Induction Weekend since 1989. On May 18, 2008, there will be an additional game, the “Cooperstown Classic”, between longtime upstate New York rivals Rochester and Syracuse. This will be in honor the International League’s 125th anniversary. Unlike other games, though, this will count as an official game in the league standings for the Red Wings and Chiefs. There is talk that they hope to make this an annual event.
Minor League teams operate on a tighter budget and there is some financial sacrifice in playing a game on a neutral site. So for the fans who have trekked from all across the country to a small village to see their heroes honored, the bush leaguers should be applauded for providing what the major leagues cannot be bothered to do.
-zenjak
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