National Baseball Hall Of Fame Cancels This Year’s Induction Ceremony

The National Baseball Hall of Fame Wednesday canceled its annual induction ceremony originally scheduled to be held July 26 behind the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, N.Y.

The Class of 2020, including Derek Jeter, Larry Walker, Ted Simmons and the late Marvin Miller, will be combined next year with any inductees from the Class of 2021.

“Induction Weekend is a celebration of our national pastime and its greatest legends, and while we are disappointed to cancel this incredibly special event, the Board of Directors’ overriding concern is the health and well-being of our new inductees, our Hall of Fame members, our wonderful fans and the hundreds of staff it takes to present the weekend’s events in all of its many facets,” said Jane Forbes Clark, the Hall’s chair. “We care deeply about every single person who visits Cooperstown.”

The event had seemed highly unlikely because of the continued growing contagion of the coronavirus. A large crowd in excess of 50,000 drawn to Cooperstown for Hall of Fame weekend from July 24-27 just didn’t seem to be in the cards.

Though the tiny upstate New York hamlet of 1,762 has been largely untouched by the spread of COVID-19, the state is one of the hardest hit spots in the world. As of Wednesday, there are 299,691 cases and 23,284 deaths in New York, according to figures provided by Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

The cases and deaths in New York are more about a third of those figures in the combined 50 U.S. states.

But in Otsego County where Cooperstown is located, there have been just 66 cases and four deaths attributed to what has been a world-wide pandemic, claiming 226,173 lives.

The Hall of Fame and Museum has been closed since March 14, only two days after Commissioner Rob Manfred canceled the remainder of spring training and delayed the start of the regular season.

Shortly thereafter, the Hall of Fame announced that its March 22 Classic home run derby and legends game at Doubleday Field had been canceled. 

Right now there are no concrete plans from either baseball or the Hall to reopen, particularly as long as the CDC is recommending no gathering of greater than 50 people.

It’s hard to imagine a crowd of 55,000, which attended last year’s ceremony headlined by Mariano Rivera, gathering again, and jamming into that quaint township. 

The health and safety of townspeople, Hall of Famers, and anyone heading to Cooperstown, obviously was paramount in making the decision.

“Being inducted into the Hall of Fame will be an incredible honor, but the health and safety of everyone involved is paramount,” said Jeter, who will be inducted now if all is well on July 25, 2021. “I respect and support the decision to postpone this year’s enshrinement and am looking forward to joining current Hall of Famers, fans, staff and my family and friends in Cooperstown in 2021.”

Until now, the Hall of Fame has had an induction ceremony at Cooperstown every year since 1961. Ceremonies were not staged in 1950, 1958 and 1960 after the voting of eligible members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of American resulted in no new electees. Elections also weren’t held in 1940, 1941 and 1943. In 1942, Rogers Hornsby was elected but an induction eremony was not held due to travel restrictions related to World War II.

Also, the first four classes elected to the Hall from 1936-39 all were inducted in 1939, the year the Museum on Main Street was opened.

 For the Class of 2021, it’s a rare year when living inductees could be scarce anyway. On the next ballot, there are no new candidates with even a remote chance of being elected.

That leaves holdovers Curt Schilling (70%), Roger Clemens (61%) and Barry Bonds (60.7%) with the best possibility of being elected by eligible members of the BBWAA. Any candidate needs 75% of the vote.

Those three players have two years remaining of their 10-year BBWAA eligibility period. Each carry their own baggage. Bonds and Clemens, despite their historic hitting and pitching numbers, have thus far been kept out of the Hall because they are tainted by their involvement in Major League Baseball’s so-called steroid era.

Schilling, rightly or not, has been kept out because of the backlash from some of his right-wing statements.

As far as the Era Committees are concerned, there are two slated to meet his December: the Golden Days and Early Baseball Committees. The Golden Days Committee considers players, managers, umpires and executives, who worked in the Majors from 1950-69, and The Early Baseball Committee will sift through similar categories prior to 1950.

Those decisions are made by separate 16-member committees consisting of Hall of Famers, former and current baseball executives, historians, and baseball writers. The groups usually meet before the start of baseball’s winter meetings, this year scheduled for Dallas, but certainly also in jeopardy.

This is all coming against the backdrop of determining whether there will be baseball played this season at any level. The prospects of canceling both the season and induction ceremony became evident in March when baseball delayed its decision about opening the season, and the Hall closed.

There has been some speculation this week that baseball could begin by the July 4 holiday. But even that is fraught with too many problems, as was having an induction ceremony in Cooperstown any time this year.

“It was a very difficult decision, but with so many unknowns facing the world, the Board felt strongly that this was the right decision,” said Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, Vice Chairman of the Hall’s Board of Directors. “Our Class of 2020 electees should enjoy the same wonderful experience that I did when I was elected, and they will have that opportunity next summer.”