JEFF IDELSON RETIRING

HoF Chief

‘Good For

Hall, Village’

By JIM KEVLIN

COOPERSTOWN – He was there in 2014 when the first sitting president, Barack Obama, visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame, pitching his tourism strategy.
He was there that fall when Little League World Champion pitcher Mo’Ne Davis, a national phenomenon, took a break from Cooperstown All Star Village in Oneonta to donate her jersey to the Hall.
He was there in 2017 on the steps of the Hall’s library to present the plaque inducting Homer Simpson into the Hall on the 25th anniversary of the iconic Simpsons episode, “Homer at the Bat.”
He was there when Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero and four other standout ballplayers drew 53,000 fans to the 2018 Induction, the second largest crowd in Hall history.
Landmarks all, but Jeff Idelson’s 11-year tenure was marked by qualities he brought to the job every day,  said former Cooperstown mayor Jeff Katz, who calls the departing Hall of Fame president – 54, Idelson announced Monday, Feb. 4, he will be retiring after the 2019 Induction – “my oldest Cooperstown friend.”
“Jeff is good in so many ways,” said Mayor Jeff of President Jeff. “One of the best ways: He always kind of lays it out there. If it can be done, it can be done. If it can’t be done, it can’t be done.”

Idelson raised the Hall’s profile of social media, and he developed the relationship with the MLB, including the MLB Network and MLB.com, to new heights, Katz said.
SUNY Oneonta history professor Bill Simons, co-director of the annual Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball & American Culture, praised the increasing quality of exhibits over the Idelson years, from the one marking Hank Greenberg’s 75th in 2008 to “interpreting the Age of Steroids as it came to an end.”
Tom Heitz, Hall librarian in 1983-95, said Idelson was a different kind of Hall president. Don Marr came out of the commissioner’s office. Dale Petroskey was recruited from National Geographic; “he was not a baseball man per se.”
But while Idelson was “very junior when he arrived” as vice president/communications. “He already had a rep for being very effective in dealing with the ballplayers,” said Heitz.
“Jeff was able to make the Hall of Famers feel like the Hall of Fame was sort of a home for them,” he continued, “a spiritual home they could rely on to feel good about themselves and their careers, and a place to bring their families.”
Idelson’s predecessor, Dale Petroskey, now president of the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce, encapsulated all those traits in his remarks: “First of all, he’s a pro. Very professional, steady. He had a great relationship with Hall of Famers – and everybody in town. I think he did a great job.”
In particular, Petroskey saluted his successor for greeting Hispanic Hall of Famers in Spanish at their Inductions.
It wasn’t all peaches and cream. “He embraced the controversies – PEDs and Pete Rose,” Katz said. “That the Hall embraced the discussion showed their head wasn’t in the sand. These discussions are why this Hall of Fame is the only one that’s on fans minds every day.”
The Hall announced it has named a committee to find a successor, and Idelson will serve on it. “I’m sure they’ll find a quality replacement,” said Katz. “But Jeff will be a hard guy to replace.”
That was reflected in Hall of Fame chairman Jane Forbes Clark’s comments in the press release announcing the transition. “I’m heartbroken,” she said, adding, “Jeff’s leadership and passion have guided this institution to great success.”
Katz put it this way, “We don’t talk about ‘no one’s coming to Induction’ anymore. We don’t talk about the Hall dying. Nobody talks about those things anymore.”
As one example of the Hall’s heightened institutional intensity, the former mayor recalled a time when Idelson served on the Village Board’s Doubleday Field Committee. “Now, Jeff is much too busy for that,” he continued.
“I mean that in a positive way,” he continued. “He’s out representing the Hall. In 2003 (when Katz arrived here from Chicago), off-season was off-season for the Hall as well. It’s certainly not true now. Everyone on that side is busy every day of the year.”
Raised in West Newton, Mass., his dad Beldon, a physician, mom Roberta, her parents, his father’s mother, and Jeff’s sister Sarah and brother Max were all “huge Red Sox fans.”
At 15, he was vending popcorn in Fenway Park. At Connecticut College in New London, just a short Amtrak ride from Fenway, he brought baseball to campus as a club sport.
He spent a semester at the London School of Economics, but on graduating followed his heart, he recounted in a 2008 interview with this newspaper, besting 20 applicants to win a part-time PR job with the Sox, launching three years of waiting on tables and eating mac and cheese to make ends meet.
Taking six months off to ski in Colorado, where he met his future wife Erika (now apart, the two raised son Aaron and daughter Nicole locally.) He also reached a decision: “1988 was it” – he was either going to break into Major League Baseball or do something else.
It was then he landed an assistant PR job with the Yankees after the leading candidate took a job with the Orioles. Meeting his boss, the formidable George Steinbrenner, at a social gathering, he introduced himself.
“Mr. Steinbrenner put his hands on my shoulders,” Idelson later recounted. “You’re the young man from Detroit.”
No, the new hired replied. He was the young man from Boston, home of the Yankees’ archrivals.
“I have three words of advice for you,” The Boss replied. “Rent, don’t buy.”
Five years in the furnace followed, creating the executive who would rise to the Hall’s helm. “He demanded perfection,” Idelson said of Steinbrenner, “which is impossible. But it puts you in the mindset of always doing the best you can every day.”
When Steinbrenner was suspended from the management – but not ownership – of the Yankees in 1990, it’s said Idelson was chosen to keep the team’s organization on an even keel.
He spent 1994 as senior press officer for World Cup USA, coming to Cooperstown the following year.
If Idelson impressed Miss Clark, the Hall of Famers, his predecessor, knowledgeable baseball fans like Bill Simons, it’s also said he was a good boss at 25 Main.
“I always got that impression people liked to work for him,” Katz confirmed. He remembered Gabe Schechter, the brainy Hall researcher and baseball writer, won a spot on “Jeopardy.”
“Jeff said, ‘Let’s get everyone from the Hall and friends of Gabe.’ A ton of us went to watch Gabe in the Grandstand Theater. This was the kind of thing that made him a great president.”

The Hall’s press release lists Idelson as the sixth president, after Stephen C. Clark, Sr., founder and Jane Clark’s grandfather; Paul Kerr, Stack, Marr and Petroskey, but locals affectionately recall
Howard Talbot, who held the title of director in the Stack and Marr years, as a key executive who belongs on that list.