March Pick Up

[Scott Garner]

In 1999 I attended the 60th HOF Induction in Cooperstown that featured the extremely popular class of Nolan Ryan, George Brett and Robin Yount. This induction was, at the time, one of the most attended HOF Inductions in history.

As part of my advanced Nolan Ryan collection, I have always kept my eye open for obscure items related to this 1999 HOF Induction.

Up until a few months ago, I had never known that for many years the HOF annually takes a formal group photo of the entire group of HOF'ers that were in attendance at the Induction. The photo is taken over HOF weekend at the Hotel Otesaga that resides across the street from the HOF. These photos are given only to HOF'ers in attendance and they are presented in a nice leatherette folio.

One of those in attendance, HOF'er Bobby Doerr, unfortunately passed in 2017 and an eBay seller in Oregon has slowly been selling off the contents of Mr. Doerr's estate. I had noticed several months ago that the seller was selling these photos to other induction years that Mr. Doerr had attended. I inquired about the 1999 Induction photo, but at the time the seller couldn't locate it. That changed this week, as the seller finally let me know that they had located it & I added this to my Nolan Ryan HOF Induction mini-collection.
Neat & obscure, to say the least, as I've never seen another in 20 years of looking...