Editorial of 07/18/2024
Coming Together—United in Celebration
It’s summer, and one thing is for sure: This month at the National Baseball Hall of Fame four singular stars—Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Joe Mauer and Jim Leyland—of our still great American pastime—baseball—will be inducted into the Hall of Fame, before a large national television audience and in front of 52 returning Hall of Famers and somewhere around 40,000 fans, in a ceremony that honors these players’ lifetime achievement in and devotion to the sport. Their plaques will join those of their many talented fellow players in the Plaque Gallery at the Hall. Induction Weekend is right now, and the tiny Village of Cooperstown has, as usual, prepared itself in all ways possible for the annual influx of baseball fans and sports devotees, journeying here from all over the country. Congratulations to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, just 15 years short of its 100th Induction, from “The Freeman’s Journal,” which has been around for all those ceremonies. Please be safe, friendly, thoughtful and polite, everyone, as you navigate through the widely diverse crowd of visitors, all of whom are entirely focused on celebrating the achievements of the four inductees.
One more thing is for sure: The Glimmerglass Festival opens its doors, with a vibrant and colorful production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance,” the very day Induction Weekend 2024 comes to a close. The four mainstage productions and one youth opera are enhanced by dinners, brunches, talks, tours and concerts, all emanating from the Festival’s idyllic Arcadian campus, so called by its Artistic and General Director, Rob Ainsley.
The Festival began in 1975 with three (or four, depending on one’s source) performances of “La Bohème,” staged in the Cooperstown High School auditorium. The professional cast—singers and orchestra—was augmented by a chorus of local volunteers, including teachers, children and doctors from Bassett. In the end, just about everyone who helped with the production—the backstage crew, the production crew, the development crew, the marketing crew and all the other crews—was a volunteer. The little company succeeded, and moved to its present location, with a specifically designed theater, in 1987, with an expanded repertory, staff, programs and audience.
Over the ensuing years of exponential growth, Glimmerglass Festival leaders have stepped up to the plate, as it were, guiding the company over acres of hurdles, both big and small, and settling it in the new century with an eye on its 50th year, now just months away. Occasionally comfortably, endlessly aware, always on point. Congratulations Glimmerglass, may you shine.
And now the other side. This week, far from Otsego County, we all watched an attempted assassination, one more strike against our American ideals and beliefs. Violence is not an answer. The many baseball fans who will drop in for the weekend, and the opera fans who will stream through all summer, represent all sides of our political, moral, social, economic and academic spectrum. They are coming together here to celebrate not their differences, but their common grounds and shared interests, with Cooperstown as their melting pot. One voice, neither red nor blue. Why can’t we all do this?