Midweek Induction brings questions about
attendance, coronavirus safety
By GREG KLEIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
In the lull of the 2013 Hall of Fame Induction, when no living people were inducted and only about 2,000 die-hard fans attended on a rainy day, and some people speculated about the demise of the tradition, keen baseball observers knew the Yankees would be coming to Cooperstown eventually.
When large class after large class started popping big attendance figures for inductions the latter half of the last decade — topping out at 53,000 for Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones, Alan Trammell, Jim Thome and Jack Morris in 2018 — keen baseball observers whispered, “just wait and see what the Yankee years bring.”
The back-to-back inductions of closer unparalleled Mariano Rivera and “the captain” Derek Jeter, both homegrown Yankees who spent their entire major league careers in pinstripes, were expected to be a boon for Cooperstown not seen since the holy grail of inductions, the 2007 enshrinement of Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn.
The Hall initially estimated that crowd to be about 75,000 people, although later computer analysis of video and pictures from the event pegged the attendance at more like 82,000 people.
Rivera, the first unanimous inductee, held up his end of the bargin in 2019. Surrounded by another big class typical of this era, he and Roy Halladay, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina — another former Yankee — Harold Baines and Lee Smith drew about 55,000 people to the Clark Sports Center in the town of Middlefield, the second biggest induction in the Hall’s history.
Jeter’s 2020 induction was expected to top Rivera’s and perhaps even rival 2007. Jeter was literally scheduled to tour the Hall for orientation the week the state shut down in March 2020; his tour and media conference was one the first cancellations of the coronavirus era.
Without Jeter and his fellow inductees Marvin Miller, Larry Walker and Ted Simmons, 2021 would have been a dull induction year with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America selecting no one for enshrinement. The 2020 class had been set for a traditional July date one year late and via a special made-for-television event.
The easing of pandemic restrictions caused the Hall to move the induction to Wednesday, Sept. 8, first with the hope of hosting a small crowd and then with the expectation of holding a mostly normal induction, except on a Wednesday in September.
However the flare-up of the Delta variant of COVID has made large gatherings uncertain again. Therefore, how many people will attend Wednesday is a complete mystery. Hall officials typically do not comment on attendance estimates, but they do admit there is more uncertainty about Induction turnout this year than there has ever been.
Local officials have said they have been told to prepare for between 30,000 and 50,000 people. And while COVID is a concern, Cooperstown Mayor Ellen Tillapaugh said she trusts the Hall will take precautions to make the event as safe as possible.
“All I can do is say, ‘I think they are doing their best,’” she said. “They have cut down on the number of events and have held some events already at the traditional time.
“I think they are really looking at this as a one-day event to a degree this year,” she said.
Tillapaugh said she is aware of the spike in COVID cases last month following the Sturgis, South Dakota, motorcycle week but she thinks the Induction is a different type of event, with less congregating in bars and less flaunting of COVID protocols.
Otsego County Board of Representatives Chair Dave Bliss said he thinks the crowd will be about half the size it might have been on a normal Sunday in July.
“The Hall normally has about 60 or 70 Hall of Famers attend the Induction, but they just annouced they are expected 30-something this year,” he said. “That is kind of the only expectation I am hearing in general.
“You really don’t know how many people will be held back because of COVID or how many people will be held back by it being a Wednesday,” he continued.