THAT’S BAD
YANKEES FANS WON’T BE ABLE TO JOIN JETER IN COOPERSTOWN
Derek Jeter’s day in the sun will not feature the sun.
The Baseball Hall of Fame announced Friday that its 2021 induction ceremony will be held indoors on July 25, without fans, due to the “continuing uncertainties” about the novel coronavirus.
“We have prepared alternative plans to conduct our annual Awards Presentation and Induction Ceremony as television events taking place indoors and adhering to all of the required New York State guidelines,” Jane Forbes Clark, the Hall’s chairman, said in a statement.
The decision marks a big blow for the Hall as well as tiny Cooperstown, N.Y., which in normal times would have benefited greatly from an influx of Yankees fans for Jeter and nearby Canadians for their native son, Larry Walker. In 2019, the last time the Hall held a live ceremony, approximately 55,000 patrons showed up to pay tribute to a class headlined by Jeter’s fellow Core Four member Mariano Rivera.
Instead, only the honorees and those necessary for the television production will be on site for the ceremony, which likely won’t even be in Cooperstown — giving the village two straight years without its vital moneymaker and depriving those selected of the Hall’s full weekend celebration replete with parties and parades.
Jeter, Walker, Ted Simmons and the late Marvin Miller all were elected before the pandemic hit, with the plan of getting inducted last summer. However, the early stages of COVID-19 prompted the Hall to cancel its 2020 event altogether. Subsequently, the Hall put the kibosh on its annual Era Committee selection and the Baseball Writers Association of America didn’t elect anyone on its 2021 ballot, leaving that quartet as the only primary honorees. The Awards Presentation will salute writers Nick Cafardo and Dick Kaegel, broadcasters Ken “Hawk” Harrelson and Al Michaels and the late David Montgomery, a longtime Phillies executive, who won the Buck O’Neil Award for lifetime achievement in the game.
The Hall’s agita is compounded by the uncertainty surrounding next year’s BBWAA ballot, which features no slam-dunk candidate to gain entry among a controversial group that will feature Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, new arrivals David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez and, unless the Hall capitulates to his request to be removed from consideration, Curt Schilling. This year’s shutout could be shrugged off due to the presence of Jeter and company on deck. A second straight zero, however, would sting.