What an Induction

What an induction

Cooperstown, New York

Christopher Chartier

August 1, 2015

There is nothing more special to a baseball fan that to visit the shrine, The National baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. This year’s induction was more spectacular to a Montreal Expos baseball fan as two former Expos, Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez were entering the Hall Of Fame in the same year. You knew that fans of Nos Amours would be there in droves.

Entering Main Street in Cooperstown looks like any other main street, but it is definitely very different, Main street collectables, Mickey’s place, Safe at Home. You knew this was a baseball town, immediately you can see the baseballness of this small town; it lives and breathes baseball. In the center of Cooperstown you find Doubleday field, the historic baseball field in Cooperstown. Watching a game on that field you can almost see Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle walking through the fences and starting a pick-up game. Doubleday field oozes its past and has a great old-school baseball feel to it.

The Hall of Fame weekend is the most special weekend to the baseball fan it allows the fans to connect to some of baseball greats; this weekend was no different 40 Hall Of Famers were present in Cooperstown.

For the newbie to the Hall Of Fame there is so much more to do than just the induction on Sunday, and you should plan at least two days to see and do it all; a great many surprises can happen as well.

There are many spots to see and meet your favourite Hall Of Famer

and baseball Pro. The Tunnicliff Inn hosts MAB Celebrity’s event

all four days, a great many Hall Of famers are there. CVS hosts

Jack Berke’s Sports autograph session; this year’s highlight was

Greg Maddux. What a line up! The Cooperstown Bat company

hosts the Fergie Jenkins foundation autograph sessions this year

Featured. Fergie himself, George Foster, Bert Campaneris.

Pantero Brothers also had a session featuring John Rocker,

The original Frank Thomas, and Lenny Dykstra. Safe at home did

not have Pete Rose this year, but instead featured Andre Dawson,

Joe Morgan and Tony Perez. In front of the old TJ’s this year they

had a great many guests but Dale Murphy and Vlad Guerrero

were my highlights. My favourite session is always Saturday when

in front of Main street collectables Ozzie Smith takes over Cooperstown.

Ozzie’s smile lights up Cooperstown.

The Hall of Fame itself offered a whole bunch of activities that were

free or you needed to get tickets for. Friday was Play Ball with

Ozzie Smith at historic Doubleday field. The Saturday at the Hall’s library

you could meet Tommy Lasorda what a treat. One of the best events is

Saturday afternoon once more at Doubleday field, the awards presentations.

All the Hall of famers new and old will be in attendance. Doubleday Field and will feature the presentation of the Ford C. Frick Award for baseball broadcasting excellence and the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for meritorious contributions to baseball writing and it is free for all to attend.

The best event is Saturday at 6PM the parade of legends, every Hall of famer in attendance is participating in the parade, and the fans have a great close contact with them all.

The induction is Sunday, a little bit outside of Main Street at the Clark Sports Center; there is a bus service to get you to the induction from the Hall of Fame. The induction does not end at the Sunday ceremonies, on the Monday you get close to all the new Hall Of Famers, in the Legends of the game roundtable,; getting close this year with Pedro, John Smoltz, Craig Biggio and Randy Johnson.

We arrived the Friday to see which of the Hall Of Famers and Pros we could meet before the expected 40,000 plus arrived for the induction on Sunday. It makes it easier less waiting and all. It was on Friday we found out Tommy Lasorda was having a free public signing for his book, a rare event and we needed to be there.

At the Fergie Jenkins foundation we meet Bert Campaneris the only player ever to play all nine positions in one game. We said hello to George Foster and Fergie. George Foster saw our Expos cap and Jersey and we had a great conversation about his career and his recent visit to Montreal; George was just in Montreal in the spring at a sports card convention.

One of the stores was hosting Vladimir Guerrero, passed by

to say Buenos Dias to Vlad and thank him for being here.

He took the time to take pictures with all of us. It was impressive

how much there was to do, you really need more than one day.

We passed by the Hall to pay tribute to the Kid, visited the two

most important plaques, the Kid and the Hawk. Passed by

to see the display for the new Hall Of Famers that were going

in this year. There are a great many items in the Hall dedicated

to the Expos in the Hall, take the time to look for them all.

Walking Main Street in Cooperstown you could see this was

not your normal Hall Of Fame weekend. Overshadowing the

usual Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees fans, were the

tons of Houston Astros fans that were there to see their first

Hall Of Famer Craig Biggio. BGO was all over Cooperstown,

it was fantastic how they represented their team

and Biggio so well.

We arrived back very early on Saturday and the difference

between Saturday and Friday was something else, at 8:30 AM

the line up for the parade was already started. We found these

great People, Dewey and Harvey from Houston and asked if

they could watch our chairs as we continued our Expos day

in Cooperstown. It was quite possibly the best baseball day I

ever had, hanging with these fans that were there for their

first inductee; must have been what it was like for Expos fans

in 2003. The energy they brought was incroyable! There were thousands of them.

Not to be overshadowed were Pedro’s fans we noticed a couple of hundred Expos fans walking around Cooperstown. Some with both a cap and Expos jersey, but often representing Expos and Red Sox... True Pedro.

We had a plan for the Saturday; see Tommy Lasorda at 11 am, at the Hall of Fame bookstore. My best treat of the weekend! We asked him about Montreal “Still love the city of Montreal and food there.” Considering he had a large line up of people he really treated my kids amazingly, joking with them it was really nice. I asked him about Youppi and the day he had him ejected “He was making noise.” Left it at that, I do not think he expected Youppi to be ejected.

At Noon we went to meet Jonah Keri. Jonah has a special way with people, he already had a crowd around him and was talking Expos and baseball, and as usual was representing with a great Expos jersey. Walking about I received another pleasant. Closer to where we were sitting was Danny Gallagher signing his book Ecstasy to Agony: The 1994 Expos. Bill Young is the co-author of this great book, but I was unaware Danny would be there. We talked baseball and the induction weekend and the return of nos Amours. A whole bunch of authors were signing in different stores along Main Street, including the Mayor of Cooperstown, Jeff Katz and his book Split Season 1981.

Walking back to my seating area I heard a bunch of noise coming from the Tunnicliff inn.... Something was happening on the stairs, as this is Cooperstown you never know what will happen. On the stairs there is a lot of commotion and a crowd that is 20 deep.... The wrestler Ric Flair was doing a sound-a-like contest for a bunch of kids it was so out of the blue was a great thing to see.

I returned to my seat to just rest up as the morning we just too much for me. Sitting there we had to have our usual snack, our traditional baseball cookie from the Bakery behind us. I started to have some great conversation with Astros’ fans Harvey and Dewey; we shared many stories about our beloved teams

I said my excuses to the Astros fans sitting next to me and I continued my schedule events and I was heading to see Ozzie Smith. Ozzie is one of my favourite visits on the Hall Of Fame weekend; always a smile always stops to chat with the fans. As I was heading up both Harvey and Dewey were staring at me, and I turned around to see someone who looked very familiar. I said hello... He said “That’s my Dad’s jersey.” It did not click who I was talking too, and I said I always

represent the Kid; he is my favourite Expo. It was one the guys

from Houston who said, you really look like your Dad. Then I

realized it was Gary’s son DJ who stopped and appreciated

and Expo fan sharing the spirit of his Dad. We talked with him

and his wife for a while and he even signed some balls and took

pictures. Sandy Carter was in Cooperstown as well that weekend.

Made it to Ozzie and he took over Main Street, if you have not met

Ozzie take the time, an incredible person to be around.

After Ozzie I was finished so I was just going to stay at my

seat and I noticed a change on Main Street. The Biggio fans

were being taken over by Pedro fans. Fans of Pedro not in

Expos, Red Sox or even Mets gear but represent

República Dominicana. Flags were everywhere... Pedro Pedro

was being chanted on all ends of Main Street. It was a party

atmosphere; Pedro was being honoured by fans of his teams

and fans from his own country. I spoke to some in my broken

Spanish and hundreds of them came from the east coast but

more from Santo Domingo as well. I asked why. Why did you

come all this way... they all said the same thing...look at what he

did, from our little country he has made us all so proud. We have waited for so long since the last person from my country (República Dominicana) was in the Hall Of Fame, it was of course was Orlando Cepeda. We will celebrate today for and with Pedro and for our country. The chants continued for hours and hours.

Annakin Slayd walked by and we chatted as I said hello and commented, look at all the Expos fans here.

The J.G. Taylor Spink Award/Ford C. Frick Award

was Saturday afternoon right at Doubleday

field Hall of Fame. Saturday the Awards

Presentation, honouring Ford C. Frick Award

winner Dick Enberg and J.G. Taylor Spink Award

winner Tom Gage, it was incredible! All the Hall

Of Famers plus Pedro, Randy, Craig and John

were all there. Pedro was hamming it up with

the crowd as the chanting in Doubleday

continued Pedro! Pedro.

The parade at 6 PM was out of this World

the chants did not stop as all the Hall Of Famers

came through. We did our very best for the

Hawk and Tony Perez as they came through

. Nolan Ryan got the loudest cheers, as the

Astros fans were getting ready for Biggio.

The parade was indescribable as when the

four current inductees passed through

it was mayhem.... Right on the corner the

drums started for Pedro and did not stop.

Biggio signs came... BGO.... BGO the Astros

fans did their guy proud. What an hour

that was.

Sunday was induction day as we walked through

Cooperstown on the way to the buses to the field

, who do we find? Vlad of course! Sporting a

great white Expos jersey we bump into the

Mayor of Montreal, Denis Corderre.

The mayor was cracking jokes with us and

took the time to answer a few questions and

take a few pictures. This is the Mayor that will

get baseball back to Montreal.

We headed to the field and already we could see a few thousand

people there at 10 AM.... We could not see the Expos fans that

were in Cooperstown on the Saturday. We managed to find a

few showing and supporting the Expos, some still wearing

Expos Caps with Red Sox Jersey or the reverse. We knew two

busloads of ExposNation were about to arrive,

100 loud Expos fans to invade the field.

What can be said about the speeches Randy Johnson was touching,

Craig Biggio was overwhelmed, John Smoltz was extremely happy.

Pedro was classy to the end thanked Montreal, Boston and all

his teams, his Home country. Pedro honoured his country, the

República Dominicana by bringing Orlando Cepeda

on stage with him.