The Baseball ThinkFactory has a good wrap-up of the goings on at the Hall of Fame weekend this past month. It’s a good read for those of us who wished we could have been there.
For those too lazy to click, here are some juicy samples:
( Prior to the big weekend, the Hall of Fame pretty much guaranteed that there would be an induction in 2006 by announcing that a special election of Negro Leagues greats would take place over the winter. Knowing full well that the Baseball Writers’ Association of America will post a goose egg in January (Bruce Sutter, Goose Gossage, and Jim Rice will all fall short of the 75 per cent needed for election), and with no Veterans Committee vote scheduled until 2007, Hall of Fame officials decided to stage the special election in February of ‘06. Several Negro Leaguers are considered strong candidates for Hall of Fame enshrinement, with catching great Biz Mackey considered the most likely to win election. With the exceptions of Buck O’Neil and Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, most of the eligible Negro Leagues greats are deceased, increasing the likelihood that there will not be a living inductee in 2006… The Hall of Fame did excellent work in putting together a committee of qualified historians for the Negro Leagues election. The committee features most of the leading experts on black baseball, including SABR members Dick Clark and Larry Lester, and author Robert Peterson, who penned the hallmark book, Only The Ball Was White…
Amazingly, none of Wade Boggs’ former teammates in Boston, New York, or Tampa Bay bothered to attend the weekend festivities in Cooperstown this year. Although Boggs was never known for his warmth toward other players or the media, it boggles the mind that all of his retired teammates decided to become no-shows at the induction ceremony. Not surprisingly, Boggs didn’t mention a single teammate by name during his induction speech…
The weekend did not come and go without some controversy. Hall of Fame infielder Rod Carew was supposed to participate in a Monday morning roundtable with the Class of 2005, Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg, but failed to show for the event, which was broadcast by ESPN on a tape-delayed basis. According to a Hall of Fame source, Carew was angered by a video shown during Sunday’s induction ceremony. The video, which was narrated by ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian, referred to the newly inducted Boggs as being like “Rod Carew, only better.” Not appreciating the negative comparison, Carew decided to make himself unavailable for the ESPN roundtable with Boggs and Sandberg…
Read the article though… it’s worth a look.