Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred announced the league will move its 2021 All-Star Game and MLB Draft from Atlanta.
…MLB has yet to select an alternate host site, but might I suggest Cooperstown, NY?
Given the short-term logistics of finding a new site, it would have the quaint feeling like Iowa’s Field of Dreams. Plus, it’s the perfect place to honor Aaron and those Hall of Fame players who’ve died in the past year.
Given how there won’t be a big Hall of Fame bash this summer, move up the class of 2020 induction. That way Derek Jeter and his fellow inductees can get the proper spotlight too.
…It would be a cool and unique setting and a splendid way to honor the game’s greats with a Hall of Fame All-Star Game.
COOK-A-LONG – 4:30 p.m. Join nutrition educator Kimberly for fun lesson on the ‘why’ & ‘how’ of eating healthy. Includes time for a cook-a-long dish. Free, registration required. Presented by Cornell Cooperative Extension. 518-234-4303 ext. 120 or visit cceschoharie-otsego.org/events/2021/04/08/whats-for-dinner
When the going gets tough, the entrepreneurs get going.
At the first “Coffee With Coop,” Glimmerglass Festival’s Francesca Zambello outlines plans for the Andrew J. Martin-Weber Lawn Stage, which will ensure a robust 2021 season, despite COVID.
A corollary: The entrepreneurial spirit isn’t limited to entrepreneurs. (Per Merriam-Webster: “A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater-than-normal financial risks in order to do so.”)
So it was telling to watch the Cooperstown Chamber’s first “Coffee With Coop” panel discussion via Zoom last Friday, March 19. Kudos to the Chamber, and Executive Director Tara Burke, who was also an adept emcee.
It was a little disheartening to hear a recitation of all the Hall of Fame cancellations, although the scope of its undertakings – an estimated 80,000 fans were expected at Derek Jeter’s Induction – make them particularly fraught, not to mention dangerous, in Time of COVID.
And yet, the entrepreneurial spirit lived in presentations by, first, Fenimore President/CEO Paul D’Ambrosio and then, in Glimmerglass Opera General & Artistic Director Francesca Zambello.
ART TALK – 2 p.m. Learn about women artists in the collection with Mary Alexander, Curator of Education. Free, registration required. Arkell Museum, Canajoharie. 518-673-2314 or visit www.arkellmuseum.org/events-calendar
FOOD WEBINAR – 2 – 3 p.m. Learn about food, recipes, and nutrition info you can use everyday. This week celebrate National Frozen Food Month. Free, registration for Zoom conference required. Presented by The Cornell Cooperative Extension. 518-234-4303 x120 or visit cceschoharie-otsego.org/events/2021/01/05/tuesdays-2
VOICES OF THE GAME – 2 p.m. Celebrate Women’s History month. Join Jenny Dalton on Zoom to discuss her baseball career, and her experience in the Colorado Silver Bullets as well as her part in the 2010 USA Women’s Baseball team in Venezuela when they brought home the Bronze medal. Free, registration required. Presented by Baseball Hall of Fame. 607-547-7200 or visit baseballhall.org/events/virtual-curator-spotlight-starting-nine-al-west?date=0
WORD THURSDAY – 7 p.m. Celebrate Black History Month with area poets online. Opens with open mic, followed by presentation by award winning novelist Jeffrey Colvin. Presented by Bright Hill Press & Literary Center. 607-829-5055 or visit www.facebook.com/brighthp/
VOICES OF THE GAME – 10:30 a.m. Continue celebrating Black History Month with discussion with Players’ Alliance President, Curtis Granderson on his career and his role as the president of the Players Alliance to better the game and society. Free, registration required. Presented by The Baseball Hall of Fame. 607-547-7200 or visit baseballhall.org/events/virtual-voices-of-the-game-curtis-granderson?date=0
VIRTUAL TOUR – 2 p.m. Zoom meeting featuring walk through of exhibit ‘Cooper, Cole, and the Hudson River School’ with manager of arts education Kevin Gray. Free, registration required. Suggested donation $5. Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown. 607-547-1400 or visit www.fenimoreartmuseum.org
By MICHAEL FORSTER ROTHBART • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
Derek Jeter
Call it COVID fatigue.
Shocking as it may have been at another time, the Baseball Hall of Fame’s announcement last week that this year’s July 25 Induction Ceremony will be broadcast on TV by the MLB Network, that’s it, has been largely accepted in Baseball Town.
What was expected to be record-breaking crowds cheering superstar Derek Jeter on the Clark Sports Center fields into the Hall of Plaques has turned into a so-far unspecified number of people in an unspecified venue.
The word of the week is “disappointed,” sometimes followed by a “but.”
“While the village is disappointed,” said Mayor Ellen Tillapaugh Kuch, “I think the Hall of Fame made a wise – and probably the only – decision they could make.”
“To say it’s disappointing is an understatement,” added Jeff Katz, Friends of Doubleday president (and former mayor), “but not a surprise. I’d be surprised if anybody was shocked.”
AUTHOR SERIES – 2 p.m. Enjoy interview with author of “Billy Ball: Billy Beane and the Resurrection of the Oakland A’s” Dale Tafoya with Bruce Markusen. Free, registration required. Presented by The Baseball Hall of Fame. 607-547-7200 or visit baseballhall.org/events/virtual-author-series-Dale-Tafoya?date=0
VIRTUAL FIELD TRIP – 1:30 p.m. ‘Cultural Diversity: Diversity In The Dugout’ presentation on how the national pastime has brought together players and fans from all walks of life for the love of the sport. Free, registration required. Presented by Baseball Hall of Fame. 607-547-7200 or visit baseballhall.org/events/virtual-field-trip-Cultural-Diversity-2021?date=0
CURATOR SPOTLIGHT – 2 p.m. Hall of fame curators give glimpses of artifacts in the museums collection from each of the five American League Central Teams, featured from the ‘Starting Nine’ exhibit. This exhibit is a great introduction to the 30 MLB teams. Free, registration required. Presented by Baseball Hall of Fame. 607-547-7200 or visit baseballhall.org/events/virtual-curator-spotlight-starting-nine-al-central?date=0
The great Hank Aaron, and wife Billye, about to round the corner at Mel’s in the 2019 Parade of Legends. (The Freeman’s Journal)
The passing of the great Hank Aaron last Friday, Jan. 22, at age 86, emphasized the death threats the future Hall of Famer received as he neared breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record on April 8, 1974.
Death threats? Contemptible. But there’s a better perspective on Aaron’s 715th home run that broke Babe’s mark at a Braves’ home game in Atlanta.
“A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol,” Vin Scully, Los Angeles Dodgers’ announcer, declared that night.
“What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the State of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world.”
And it was, and it is.
Even better, today, 46 years later, two generations have grown up since 1974, and there’s nothing exceptional today about a black athlete breaking a record – it’s more than routine.
The idea was to bring fans to Cooperstown. What about taking Cooperstown to the fans?
In the Age of COVID, the second sentence is a more intriguing one.
And it played out this week with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s annual announcement of the Induction Class of 2021.
While it turned out there was no one to announce this year, the MLB Network spent the afternoon transmitting the Hall’s various exhibits and attractions to a national audience.
The last few years, Hall of Fame presidents, first Jeff Idelson and, lately, Tim Mead, have been announcing classes from a sterile studio in Secaucus, N.J.
How much more of an impact comes from staging the event in the cathedral-like Hall of Plaques, sanctum santorum of America’s Pastime?
If not for Derek Jeter and his Classmates of 2020, this would have been another sparse summer for baseball in Cooperstown.
For the first time since 2013, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America elected none of the 25 Hall of Fame candidates above 75 percent, leaving the class of 2021 at zero.
Hall of Fame President Tim Mead announced results pf BBWAA balloting Tuesday, Jan. 26 – for the first time, broadcast from the Hall of Plaques at 22 Main St.
He said he’s confident that the ceremony will take place on July 25, saying that there is a lot of “diligent” work happening “behind the scenes.”
Mead’s presentation, which was broadcast live by the MLB Network, also marks the first time an Induction Class has been announced at the Hall of Plaques.
For years, it was done at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. Lately, HoF presidents, Jeff Idelson and last year Mead, announced the class at MLB Network headquarters in Secaucus, N.J.
