COOPERSTOWN, NY -- The big question surrounding a Baseball Hall of Fame induction day like no other was simple: How many people would show up?
You ask around in the days leading up to a ceremony a long time in the making. Ted Simmons, who retired in 1988, was tabbed by an era committee at the 2019 winter meetings, along with late labor pioneer Marvin Miller. A month later, they were joined in the Baseball Writers' Association of America balloting by last-chance candidate Larry Walker and first-timer/no-brainer Derek Jeter.
Jeter's selection had the folks at the Hall jazzed. When Jeter's New York Yankees teammate, Mariano Rivera, was inducted in the last ceremony -- on July 21, 2019, or 781 days before Wednesday -- an estimated 55,000 fans descended on Cooperstown, that idyllic little village in upstate New York. Jeter was one of them. That was the second-largest induction day crowd in history, trailing only the 82,000 on hand when Cal Ripken Jr. went into the Hall in 2007. Surely Jeter's crowd would race past that of Rivera, and Ripken's mark seemed to be in jeopardy.
Then ... everything happened, inside baseball and out, to all those associated with the Hall of Fame and to all the rest of us who are not. For the first time since the Hall of Fame
Things improved enough that the Hall decided to hold an in-person ceremony after all, pushing the date back to two days after Labor Day and scheduling the ceremony for the middle of the week as opposed to the usual Sunday afternoon. A return to normalcy? Not quite. But perhaps it would be a step in the right direction, and the newest Hall of Famers would get the day that for many months it appeared they might never have.
Still, two days before the ceremony, on Labor Day, with the kids either back in school or due to return, summer all but over, no one really knew how many people would show up in Cooperstown. The estimates varied wildly -- 15,000, according to some locals down on Main Street, and as many as 45,000 when you quizzed event staffers.
It was impossible to know, because the event is free and unticketed. If you show up at the Clark Sports Center and claim a spot on the ground, you get to watch the ceremony. Never had so many obstacles been in place to allow people to do just that simple thing. Still ... it's Derek Jeter, the most popular and familiar player in baseball, before and after his spectacular career, and it's Yankee fans, only four hours by car from New York City.
How many people would turn out for Derek Jeter?
The lake doesn't know time. Otsego Lake, the picturesque body of water that blossoms away from the shore at the bottom of the hill on which Cooperstown is situated, looks the same. Boats. Docks. Ducks. Green-forested banks all around. Looking at it, it's hard to fathom that it's been more than two years. So much has happened. So much has been lost.
Yet as we outsiders descend on this little slice of bliss, you can feel a familiar rhythm gradually becoming clear. One that you can't forget, not really, but one that's been blotted out by the travails of civilization. It's the rhythm of stopped time, which is kind of what Cooperstown really is all about.
At least it feels like that to a baseball fan who has made it to this mecca of the pastime, where you can find your heroes waiting no matter when they lived or where they came from. It's the rhythm of a slowly relaxing pulse, a mild thump and an exhale. It's a rhythm that has been there all along.
But know this: Cooperstown was not held in stasis, waiting to be animated in medias res when we all were able to return. It's a real place full of real life and people navigating through the same terrors that have confronted us all.
The lake doesn't know time. But we do, and that was starkly clear the day before induction day.
Main Street was blocked off to traffic, as it always is during the time of induction, with the bustling boulevard converted to a crowded pedestrian mall. The busiest time is the day before induction day, when in a normal year the crowds arrive early and swell throughout the day in anticipation of the annual parade of heroes, when the returning and new Hall of Famers roll down Main Street waving to their adoring fans.
Not in 2021. Main Street was blocked off, but that was the only resemblance to past induction weekends. You could walk down the middle of the street unimpeded. You could have had a game of catch. There was plenty of space.
The tables that typically line the sidewalks with everyone hawking all kinds of baseball-related wares were mostly absent, save for those establishments that set up a table out front. There was no wait at the restaurants, including Mel's at 22, a popular cafe at the opposite end of Main Street from the museum. It's been remodeled since the last induction day, though many of this week's customers were discovering that for the first time.
The owner came out to greet his customers, expressing some surprise that more people weren't around. Mel's, like a number of places in Cooperstown that rely on a robust flow of tourists, has battled an absence of both tourists and employees. But Mel's seems to have mostly weathered the storm.
2021 was better than 2020, but there were businesses that closed or changed hands. A couple of restaurants. A couple of memorabilia stores looked desolate. As this isn't exactly a golden age for retail in the first place, storefronts that were empty even before the pandemic remain such.
Nevertheless, you get the same response around town to the question of how it's held up. You get a shrug and a kind of half-nod, half-head shake, the body language of "it could be worse."
At least the Hall of Fame is still here, and it's not going anywhere.
"We're all in it together," said Jon Shestakofsky, the Hall's vice president of communications. "Us and other museums and attractions to restaurants and accommodations, it all has to work together to make this system work and to make Cooperstown what it is."
A couple of Baltimore Orioles fans are at the bar in Mel's, a man clad in the team's bright orange colors and his daughter. They come to Cooperstown every year, and they even came in 2020, when there was no ceremony. They said it was like just another day, which in itself is a strange thing for anyone who comes to Cooperstown to encounter the touchstone of baseball nostalgia.
Two Yankee fans are at the end of the bar. They've been to see Reggie Jackson and, though both are grown, seemingly well-adjusted adults, they get overly excited about news that Joe Torre is wandering around. The Orioles fans shakes his head. He's the old hand at all this, and this year, there's no parade, no golf tournament with its numerous photo and autograph opportunities, no next-day, in-person roundtable discussion with the new inductees.
And yet, they came anyway. They would not have considered otherwise.
A few blocks away, a man is renting out his larger driveway as an all-day parking lot, as finding a spot on the street in the village during induction time is all but impossible. He was getting $15, a bargain compared to other options in town, where signs were asking for as much as $100. Those lots were mostly empty on Tuesday. The man said many businesses in town are teetering, as you'd expect, but that most also look forward to the return of better days.
Back on Main Street, there is one corner with a little bit of a hubbub. Out on the sidewalk, next to the Cooperstown Beverage Exchange, there is a row of tables where some retired players are signing autographs for a fee. There is John Smoltz, who has been in the news lately for his decision to remain unvaccinated, signing for fans and greeting them with his smiling, bare face. On down the row is fellow Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers, with his gray moustache waxed at the ends as of yore, and Goose Gossage, with his white walrus whiskers, and Orlando Cepeda, seated in a wheelchair but looking snappy in a panama hat.
There is also Bill "The Spaceman" Lee, who between signing autographs is wandering about, posing for pictures with anyone who asks, telling stories about his career and exploits in his senior baseball league, and just generally slapping backs and having a good time.
This is the kind of thing people come to Cooperstown to discover, and it was there to be found this year too. But there just wasn't as much of it. At times, the line to greet the old ballplayers varied from five deep to a couple of dozen. It was steady but far from a madhouse. Down the street, inside one of the memorabilia shops that line Main Street, Pete Rose and Jackson were signing.
There's usually more. The snippets of normal Cooperstown were there to be found, such as one father, a Yankees fan, explaining to his son how the greatness of Gossage is different than that of Rivera.
Inside the Exchange, there is a row of temporary bartenders standing at the ready to pour drafts of Induction Day Ale -- tapped for this occasion only -- but during the midafternoon on Tuesday, there were only a few takers. Sure to be a popular item were the six packs of The Captain's -- the special Derek Jeter beer put out by Cooperstown Brewing.
Out on the sidewalk, there is a grill running, and the air is filled with the smell of hot dogs and gyros rotating on a spit and onions. This corner, on this day, at least, is where the action is. But next door to the Exchange, just around the corner from where Hall of Famers are signing autographs for cash, is an ice cream shop, normally a place of conviviality during a busy day when the induction is held at the hottest time of the year.
But this year, the shop is closed. Signs on the window advertise a "turnkey" business, a shop right there on Main Street in Cooperstown, and it can be yours for $39,900. Perhaps it was inevitable for a small village that's gone too long without its signature event, and the tens of thousands of people it brings in, and the sales tax revenue that comes with them. The youth tournaments that also keep tourists flowing through town in normal times have been more scarce, as well. It's a familiar story across the nation.
It's also why even though the Hall wanted to give Jeter, Simmons and Walker their day, they wanted to have it for the village too.
As the day advances into the evening on Tuesday, the crowds begin to grow, but only a little. It's a fraction of a normal pre-induction gathering, but it's enough to generate some anticipation for the day to come. Of course, the prevalence of Jeter fans dwarfs the presence of all other, black-clad baseball fans of all ages donning their NY logos and, many of them, some kind of No. 2 merchandise. Other teams are represented, of course, but rarely enough that you take notice of them.
Finally, with the hum of the afternoon remaining subdued and light arteries of pedestrian traffic flowing to-and-fro, one No. 2-wearing Yankee fan can no longer contain himself. Standing in the middle of Main Street, he bellows, "DER-EK, JET-TER!!!"
And his call is answered resoundingly enough that it gives you hope for what is to come.
The Hall itself is unchanged. The plaque gallery looks immaculate, as do the statues of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams, with the spaces on the wall for the new inductees ready to go. On Tuesday, there was a good crowd coming through, though the museum has had to manage the flow of things during the pandemic.
During a normal, four-day induction period, the Hall would see upward of 20,000 visitors. During a normal July day, that figure was around 2,500. During the entire 2020 calendar year, the museum had about 50,000 visitors. This year, the Hall expects the figure to rebound to about half of pre-pandemic levels.
And while the Hall itself looks the same, much has changed. Ten Hall of Famers have died since the last induction day. All were recognized during Wednesday's ceremony: Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford, Joe Morgan, Phil Niekro, Tommy LaSorda, Don Sutton and Hank Aaron.
"When the induction was canceled, and later postponed, everyone told me don't worry about it; it's going to happen eventually, and it's going to feel the same," Jeter said. "You were right, but I do want to point out one thing. The Hall of Fame is special because of those who are in it. And we've lost way too many Hall of Famers over the last 20 months.
"These are all Hall of Famers who would have or could have been here. Selfishly, for that reason, it's not the same."
The comment might have perfectly captured the dynamic of the afternoon. It wasn't a return to normalcy, but it was a step toward something like it. But given what we've lost, the new normal will be different than the old one. And as if to hammer home the reminder of the time we're living through, the touching video about the fallen Hall of Famers was narrated by Johnny Bench. Bench, usually a fixture in induction festivities, was not on hand because he contracted COVID-19.
Before the ceremony, the flow on the streets was steady but far from a flood. The Jeter-heads were dominant, but you'd see a splattering of other team colors -- St. Louis Cardinals red here, powder-blue Kansas City Royals there, even one Arizona Diamondbacks fan who was a long way from the desert.
About 90 minutes before the ceremony, Main Street was active but not jammed. Most of the bars had the chatter of celebrants. There was a small throng in front of the museum, where they were showing the ceremony in both of the theaters on site. Business at the Exchange was strong.
More importantly, the magic of Cooperstown was still in effect. In front of the Stagecoach Coffeehouse, a man nearly came out of his shoes at the sight of Smoltz walking down the sidewalk, presumably en route back to his hotel room to get changed for the ceremony. The man, who later said he collects autographs of former Roberto Clemente Award winners, added Smoltz to his list and said that alone justified his trip.
At the Clark Sports Center, the non-reserved areas out back began filling up early in the day, with people returning to reclaim the seats that were reserved the day before by setting up their folding chairs. The day began bright and breezy, after forecasts over the previous few days suggesting a gut punch of a thunderstorm was possible.
The rain did come, but not until the speeches were finished and the attendees were well on their way, ready to tell family and friends about the time they saw Derek Jeter go into the Hall of Fame.
Cooperstown is a place for greatness, yet at the same time is a bastion of equality. Jeter dominated the proceedings, just as he has dominated the attention sphere in baseball for a quarter century. Heck, Jackson even wore a Jeter jersey on stage as he sat with the other Hall of Famers.
Still, Jeter was treated no different than his fellow inductees. Here, there is great or not great, but there are no subdivisions within that classification. This is a place of history and of myth, but also of mirrors that reflect the times in which our baseball memories have been created.
Myth plays as big a role as reality in the allure of Cooperstown. Everyone understands that baseball was not invented here by Abner Doubleday nor was it first played in the lot of a farm just off of what is now Main Street. Yet there is a ballpark there now, and it is called Doubleday Park, and the cathedral of baseball history has resided here on the banks of Otsego Lake for more than 80 years now.
Myth and history, forever co-mingled, there for the literal and the fanciful minded alike. Plenty of both were on hand Wednesday.
So, just how many people turned out for Derek Jeter? The Hall's official estimate was 20,000, which seems a tad inflated, but it's hard to say. It certainly wasn't the 100,000 that the people in Cooperstown once hoped to see.
But it was enough. It was enough to remind us that baseball fans will always return to this picturesque village by the lake. It was enough to remind us what the village is like at full flower. And it was enough for Yankees fans to let Jeter know that they will never forget him.
After he was introduced and one wave of adulation moved smoothly into another, and the once-familiar chants of his name echoed across the lawn, Jeter reminded all of us why a virtual ceremony just would not have been adequate.
"I forgot how good that feels," Jeter said.
Indeed, it felt very good, for it had been a long time, for Jeter and for us all.