Hall Of Fame, Cooperstown Prepare For Induction Ceremony Without Living Players

Next Sunday, baseball will hold one of its most sacred and enduring rituals. Three men will be forever enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

The problem is none of them are alive.

For the first time since 1996, not one living player got the 75 percent of baseball writers’ votes needed to gain entry to the Hall. Many interpreted the result as a collective protest vote over the Steroid Era.

This all makes for an uncomfortable moment in history for the Hall of Fame and its host village, Cooperstown. So this reporter went there to see how people are trying to make the best of an induction weekend without living inductees.

For so many members of the baseball community, it’s still the annual rite of passage in Cooperstown and will be so.

Brad Horn, Baseball Hall of Fame

It’s a place fathers take their kids to share something special, like Ron and Vladimir Perry, from Kerhonkson, New York. They take in the green grass and crisp white bases.

“No more of an iconic ballpark in the world than right here,” Ron said. “[This is] his first year playing Little League, and I just wanted to bring him up here and see the history."

But now steroids are a part of that history. It feels like contaminating a special moment to ask – what do you think of the fact that no one was voted into the Hall this year? Perry sighs. They were hoping Mike Piazza would get the call.

“You know, we’re Mets fans in my house. I think he got robbed, but what are you going to do? The writers took a stance against something that’s wrong,” Perry said.

This was the year that some of the game’s biggest suspected or confirmed steroid users became eligible for the Hall of Fame: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire.

Joe Posnanski, columnist for NBC Sports and a long-time writer for the Kansas City Star, is one of the 569 members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America who voted.

“There were so many people on this ballot, who, under normal circumstances, if there had been no steroid story at all, would have sailed in,” Posnanski said. “We’re talking probably seven or eight people on this ballot who would have been a first ballot choice. It really was a year where it was very, very difficult for anyone to get their arms around what any of it meant.”

Houston Astros lifer Craig Biggio came the closest to the 75 percent threshold, with 68.2.

So, how do you pull off an induction ceremony without a bona fide, living breathing baseball hero? That’s the job of the Hall of Fame’s Brad Horn.

Horn took me out to the induction site one windy day. It’s the exact spot of the largest induction ceremony ever, in 2007, when almost 80,000 adoring fans watched Commissioner Bud Selig welcome Cal Ripken Jr. into baseball’s most exclusive club.

By comparison, last year’s Barry Larkin and Ron Santo induction drew 20,000 people.

This year, three posthumous inductees top the bill – a catcher/third baseman from the 1880s named Deacon White, umpire Hank O’Day, and former Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert, the guy who bought Babe Ruth from the Red Sox in 1919.

Horn says they’re filling out the program by honoring 12 inductees who never got a ceremony because of World War II, including Lou Gehrig and Rogers Hornsby.

“It forces us to look inward, and that’s why we’re taking this opportunity to honor our history, so for the families that come, for the friends, for the so many members of the baseball community, it’s still the annual rite of passage in Cooperstown and will be so,” Horn said.

But on Cooperstown’s Main Street, some business owners aren’t buying what the Hall is selling. Induction weekend fills hotels, bed and breakfasts, stores, and restaurants.

Inside the 7^th Inning Stretch, a baseball gear and souvenir store, manager Barry Renert is downbeat.

“People are not happy about it. It’s not good for baseball, it’s not good for the fans, it’s not good for the store owners here,” Renert said. “What else can I say? It’s not going to be a good summer for us.”

Vincent Russo owns another baseball shop, Mickey’s Place. He’s more even-keeled about the whole thing. In his 23 years on Main Street, Russo counts just three truly epic induction ceremonies. And he says there’s a formula to them: a mega-star elected to the Hall who played most of his career in one market and that market is within driving distance of Cooperstown.

By that measure, there’s a potential baseball cavalry on the way – Detroit’s Jack Morris in his last year of eligibility, first-year eligibility for Greg Maddux and Frank Thomas. And of course not far down the road, the holy grail of induction weekends – Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter.

That’s why Cooperstown mayor Jeff Katz isn’t worried, even if this year his village will be mentioned in the same sentence as “steroids” again and again.

“In this year, Cooperstown and baseball stories are tricky,” Katz said.  “I do think over the next 10 years, we’re going to see high-profile, well-attended inductions.”

As for the game itself, the Hall of Fame’s Brad Horn says baseball has weathered other scandals, stains and awkward moments. He says the Hall of Fame induction ceremony remains the gold standard for baseball dreamers.

“This is the culmination of that dream. And it shows that it’s extraordinarily hard even for the best athletes in the world to earn election to the Hall,” he said.

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire may never make it in. But it sure wouldn’t hurt this village if they did.