Cooperstown’s Baseball Hall Of Fame

Is Home To The Great And The Elite

Seventy five years ago George Herman (Babe) Ruth was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Since then, a select group of the game’s former great players are considered for induction into this elite fraternity each year.

For the past twelve years I have represented The Tribune at baseball’s hometown, Cooperstown, New York and interacted with some of the legends who make this America’s favorite game.

This year three more baseball greats joined the Hall of Fame family; 12-time All Star and 10-time Gold Glove award-winning second baseman Roberto Alomar, Bert (Rik Aalbert) Blyleven, the first Hall of Fame ‘Dutchman’ from Holland with the amazing ‘dropping curveball’, and former general manager of the Blue Jays, Orioles, Mariners and Phillies, Pat Gillick.

Also this year, the Hall of Fame lost ‘Sparky’ Anderson, Bob Feller, Harmon Killebrew and ‘Duke’ Snider. The Tribune published a great story about Feller’s patriotism and heroism as the first baseball star to enlist in the Armed Forces following Pearl Harbor and several articles about Harmon Killebrew reaching out to children as well as adults on the topic of courage and integrity in the game of baseball.

This year a parade was held along Main Street followed later in the day with a special awards presentation at Doubleday Field. The special awards were presented to Bill Conlin, who spent more than 40 years as a Major League baseball sportswriter in Philadelphia, Dave Van Horn, who devoted 43 seasons calling play-by-play action on radio for the Montreal Expos (now the Washington Nationals) and currently for the Florida Marlins and the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award went to Roland Hemond for enhancing baseball’s positive impact on society during a seven decade career in front office management.

In closing, The Tribune would like to offer prayers and best wishes to Hall of Famer Gary Carter, ‘The Kid,’ who is battling his biggest at bat against brain cancer.