OT: Baseball Hall of Fame Suffers Losses but Says Finances Improving
 

Some details on Cooperstown’s finances and attendance.
Baseball Hall of Fame Suffers Losses But Says Finances Improving
https://www.sportico.com/leagues/bas...es-1234817157/

Yeah, sure. Everyone wants to come see the Harold Baines plaque.

Probably can’t help that the voters have stirred up so much controversy, dragging the larger institution down with them.

The hall is always an amazing place to visit no matter what the occasion

Reading the article. They seem fine. It's just cyclical.

I’m obviously biased but I wonder if they can better tap into the collector energy, and not just vintage… seems like there may be some potential there to grow as well

Hall is amazing, but it's in the middle of f'n nowhere.

Even if you happen to be in Albany or Syracuse you're still 1.5 hours away from Cooperstown.

Exactly. I haven’t been there yet. Really want to go but don’t want to drive that distance. They really need to open up a local airport but totally get why the town doesn’t.

At the very least, they should have nice tour buses leaving from major cities w/in a 200- 300 mile radius. They don’t. Only Refer you to a couple tour companies that turned out to be useless for me. I guess that’s why so many friends / local groups end up renting their own tour bus if they can get enough people.

If you wanna bang two things off at once, Howe Caverns is about a 50 minute drive from Cooperstown. It's a neat place for anybody who likes Geology.

Well, for whatever the reasons, the pro football HoF SEEMS to have more relevance and attraction with people today. I know personally a number of family and friends who have visited both Cooperstown and Canton and enjoyed the Canton pro football experience more.

The card shops in Cooperstown are classic in the sense of aesthetics, but they are sharks praying on the tourists with singles prices at 10-25x of sanity. The new Dave and Adam’s story was clean and brand new when I was there.



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Hall suffers losses
 

The average value of a MLB franchise is 2.4 billion dollars, somebody tell me why those boys can't lend a hand to Cooperstown.

According to the article, covid is responsible for the drop in attendance. Wouldn't this be a one-time thing.

I agree, Cooperstown, one of the places on earth you can't get to from here.
But....

Why couldn't the Hall send out a traveling exhibition. I don't mean a 40 foot trailer filled with stuff, but an arrangement with major museum across the country. Of course this would actually involve some work on the Hall's part. Can't have that....

Then again, maybe the people who go to places like the Hall are just getting old and nobody is filling the gap.

Finally, the stock market is thru the roof, how is it they can't make money on their endowment.

THAT is the answer, I think. For whatever the reason, the NFL seems to be doing a better job of marketing their history.

About 260,000 visited the baseball HoF last year, but according to them, that's down from 2022.

About 208,000 visited the pro football HoF last year, up 30,000 from 2022. But, over 700,000 visited Canton for the enshrinement ceremonies last year.

Billionaires are really struggling right now...haven't you heard? Sometimes they even have to pay for their own stadiums! Maybe we can start a GoFundMe.

LOL, when have they done this?

Guys it's fine. Scott Rolen and Fred McGriff were inducted in 2023. It's already up this year. They will be ok. :)

2000-2001 Gillette stadium. Or then CMGI stadium.

The US cycling hall of fame was in a strip mall in NJ. Then lost it's lease and was put in storage.

After a few years and a search for a new home it was given a place by UC Berkely.

They have had no support at all from any of the companies.

John Fisher will have to contribute some of the money for the Las Vegas ballpark...Nevada taxpayers are only covering around $400 million of it...Poor guy!

The Warriors actually paid for their new arena in San Francisco (which the team brass complained about publicly), but that's definitely an outlier.

That other little stadium in Frisco too. First privately funded MLB stadium since those goons in LA.

Some real household name superstars there, for sure.

For me, that's one of its greatest attributes. The surrounding area is one of the most beautiful in the country for my taste, especially in the fall.

Now, if they could only get a few more decent places to eat, it would be perfect.

There have been a few threads here about the HoF. It seems there's quite a list of folks who should be "no brainer" in but aren't, and a like list of fellows that are in that somehow slipped through the cracks. That's one problem. Another is that the only folks that truly care about the baseball HoF are old fogies like me. And even I have lost interest due to the problematic lists stated above. The more youthful members of society don't give a hoot about who's in, what's displayed, or anything else about it. Self-stated positivity aside, it appears to be losing real relevance. Again, maybe I'm wrong, but the NFL seems to be taking a better approach by making their history and enshrinements seem more appealing and interesting to their youthful fan base.

Hof
 

Its a cool museum, no doubt...but I wouldn't go up there..every few years...not even every 5 yrs...

Whereas I have sworn an oath to never set foot in the place until they let my man Barry in.

But I suspect that cuts the opposite direction for a lot of the board members.

Rawitch, who earned a salary of $401,479..

Cool job to have.,,.

Semi-serious question, but who would be in the US Cycling Hall of Fame? The guy who supplied Lance Armstrong his drugs?

As for Cooperstown, I think it's kind of cool that it is in a hard to reach place. If you want to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, it's not all bad that you have to trek a little bit to get there. If the HOF were in New York City, it be just another obligatory stop on the dreaded museum tour.

I very much would like to go to the Hall. I was there in 1980 as a kid and loved it but don't remember much. But... I live 2000 miles away and visiting would be a full-on vacation for me. No thanks.

I'm 38yo, and I would love to go. But my wife and my vacation timeline seldom overlaps, and I wouldn't take my kids who would likely complain and ruin my experience. Maybe my son would like it, but my daughter would not! My wife said she would love to do a bus tour that hits ballparks, games, Broadway, and Cooperstown. But that is most likely a retirement plan 30 years from now!

My wife is a county elections supervisor and there is usually an election in July/August that prevents her from traveling while I'm out of high school on summer break.

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SF Giants

We formed a little league team of 13 year olds (think bad news bears) and took them to the Field of Dreams week long tournament in Cooperstown. Hands down was the most incredible father/son experience one could have. Staying on the Lake for a week, meandering around town, hanging at Doubleday field, the Hall was the cherry on top.
We came from California landed in Boston, caught a Red Sox game, rented a motor home and drove to Cooperstown, had many amazing experiences along the way.
Not enough to keep the Hall in business but I wouldn't trade that memory for anything.

Amazing museum. So well done. Get there maybe every 5 years. Farming Museum ain’t bad also.

Impossible for me to agree more.

I love that the induction ceremony is still free. Pure baseball americana

I would go every 2-3 years but once they instituted the Pete Rose rule and made him ineligible for the Hall of Fame, I would only ever go back when he was inducted and if he was still alive for the induction, since that is no longer possible I will never step foot in the baseball Hall of fame ever again.

As for the comparison with the football Hall of fame, I could spend an entire day in the baseball hall of fame, you can see the entire football hall of fame in 2 hours.

One would think MLB would be interested in supporting efforts to restore/rehabilitate the BB HOF.

Perhaps someone could explain the reason there's such a disconnect between MLB and the HOF.

MLB just seems so very CHEAP. There should be rules in place that require teams to take better care of the players that are moving up through their farm system. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be occurring on the scale it should be happening.

The next statement will be viewed as sacrilege - If MLB doesn't provide support, then why can't the BB HOF auction some of it's extra memorabilia to create an account that grows and results in an account so that further fund raising would not be necessary. They can't display everything they have now, so why not?

Ultimately, what would be nice is if MLB, the Player's Union or other entities related to baseball would pitch in and provide support.

As mentioned in the quoted post, perhaps interest is waning. :eek:

This here. People complaining about who is in and my favorite player isn't, that is irrelevant. Undeserving players have been elected since the 1940s, like Tommy McCarthy and Jack Chesbro, and Shoeless Joe Jackson still isn't in the HOF.

The HOF is a non-profit and they lost money last year for the first time in a decade. A non-profit that makes money 9 of 10 years is doing pretty good. The article explains it. Their investment income was down. I guess everyone has forgotten how bad the markets were the first 9 months of last year. They have also hired more people. Why is that? Could it be that they are preparing for Ichiro being inducted and an influx of Asian visitors? Showing a loss so you can grow your market is good for business.

The Hall is still a very relevant place for my young grand children
 

My son drove up for a two day visit last week with Poppy and Sami (12 years old) and son Thaddeus (7 years old). All three play the game at various levels and were absolutely fascinated by the wealth of memorabilia on display. An additional incentive for them, of course, was to see the gold lined, solid silver cup won by Sam Thompson in a popularity contest in 1895 that I donated to the Hall in 1974. It is a beautiful thing, and the Hall has always displayed it prominently. I grew up with it. My mother kept it on her sewing machine with her sewing materials and Sam's Dauvray Cup Medal.

And as to who is in and who is not, every player's career is a matter of public record that should speak for itself, not the occasion of induction into some institution with some very bad flaws.

If Lance is the only rider you know it might take a lot of explaining.
Lance is NOT in the hall of fame.... sort of like Jackson and Rose.

Major Taylor
Bobby Walthour Sr
And junior
Steve Hegg - Olympic gold in 84 plus a silver, several national championships.
John Howard - Olympic team 68, 72, 76, Won the road race in the Pan Am games in 71, four national championships, won the 81 ironman, and oh yeah, a motorpaced world record in 1985

Rebecca Twigg- six world championships in Pursuit, 16 national championships.

Ted Ernst- as a contibutor, having a family history of bike shops supporting racers. But he also was a pioneer of US riders competing professionally in Europe in the early postwar era.

And a bunch more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...g_Hall_of_Fame

Greg Lemond, who has been a vocal critic of Lance Armstrong, is who first came to mind for me.

Lemond's run in the 80's was when I was first started following the Tour De France. "American Flyers" and "Breaking Away" were two of my favorite movies when I was a teenager.

Sadly, I dropped the biking road trips with my friends after I got my driver's license and cars became much more convenient to get around in. :)

Wouldn't that be more like:
Bonds
Sosa
McGwire
Clemens

:)

As my grandma putting down her dabber would say, "BINGO!!!!!!"

I am spoiled and live about an hour and 10 mins away. I play in a 4 team old man/1 woman baseball league in the area with hall employees and interns. You would be amazed how dedicated these people are to the hall and the experience of the guests.

I like to go on my birthday which is December 26 day after Christmas and yes they r open. I have Sat in that hall a number of times with not a single other person there or half an hour at a time. It is magical, it is a religious experience being there along. If you haven't bee, go if you are boycotting for some reason like you are providing a point to somebody, it is you that is missing out not them

That's gotta be a thrill to see an item you donated on display. I'm guessing, based on the names, that Sam is a relative? So very cool.

That's gotta be a thrill to see an item you donated on display. I'm guessing, based on the names, that Sam is a relative? So very cool.

I'm about a 5-6 hour drive away. That's a perfect distance to travel, while keeping it far enough removed that I don't go very often and would ever tire of it.

Induction Day is a must-do at least once in every fan's lifetime. Personally, I only did it once, as a young boy, and am glad that's when it happened. As an adult, the crowds and hullabaloo wouldn't agree with me, but it's magical for a child.

Give me a week in the spring or fall. Cooperstown is at those times the quiet little place it is for most of the year. I can enjoy a breakfast among the locals at the thimble that is the Cooperstown Diner, the Baker Bowl of eateries, before heading to the NBL to do my research.

I'm redundant to mention it a second time, but it's important for me to reiterate that it would be made perfect if only 1-2 more decent restaurants were close by for dinner. The Tunnicliff isn't too bad, and has a wonderfully old fashioned atmosphere.

If I still drank, a couple of decent bars would have been welcomed. Something longstanding and quaintly dingy that specifically did NOT cater to the tourist crowd. That's no longer a need on my agenda, but it would still be wonderful for those who would wish to take advantage of it.

The place is just not conveniently located, despite the area being beautiful. There's one great hotel there but it's expensive. I also find the HOF hard to really enjoy when it's crowded. But it's something every baseball fan has to see.

We visited the Hall the first weekend in November and while we live about four hours away, we try to get up there every 2-3 years....Not really crowded so we were able to see what we wanted comfortably and most of the shops were still open..

There is a decent Holiday Inn Express hotel near Dreams Park and also noted that a Hampton Inn is in the course of construction closer to downtown...

I agree with the sentiment that every baseball fan should visit at least once

I never miss a chance to promote Sam's career, so
 

here goes. Yes, Samuel Luther Thompson (Detroit 1885-1888, Philadelphia 1889-1898, Detroit 1906, HOF 1974) was a brother of my grandfather. Sam and Ida had no children, so nieces and nephews were invited to Cooperstown in 1974 for his induction. My sons were 8 and 10 years old. We had special passes, and because I think they were mistaken for Mantle's young boys at times they had many opportunities to mingle with the players. For example: One afternoon my boys were lingering around a small out building where about a dozen old black players were holding a luncheon. Satchel Paige noticed them, put a long hand on each boys shoulder, took them inside and introduced them individually to each player. For myself, one noon I had luncheon and was seated next to Clair Ruth and Eleanor Gehrig.

to answer your question again, yes I, my father, Sam, his five brothers and three sisters all were born in Danville, Indiana. My father knew Sam, of course, and once told me: "we always welcomed Sam's visits, but he never would play catch with us."