Legends are Born, Not Made, or Some Such

Bruce Markusen over at Bronx Banter has made a post about the end of the Hall of Fame Game. It's worth a look.

On my first read, my thought is WHAT?!, as in, how could they do this? How could they end so many years of baseball tradition, so on and so forth. I was even all ready to sign the petition to save the game...

...and then I read one of the suggestions to take the place of the annual Hall of Fame Game: they have a Futures' Game, so why not a Legend's Game?


Think about it for a second.


Old Timer's Day at Yankee Stadium is easily one of the most popular tickets of the year. It's a wonder that more teams don't do it...granted, it'd be hard for clubs like the Devil Rays, Diamondbacks or the Marlins to do something like that, but, eventually, they'll have old timers, too. Well, maybe.


Still, though. You know the chills you get when Yogi puts on that uniform again, same as Jackson or, for a long time, Scooter. Can you imagine the chills you'd get watching Sandy Koufax pitch to Willy Mays or Nolan Ryan throw to Yogi? Do you remember the chills you got, back in 1999, when they revealed the All-Century Team?

Think about the crowd that'd come to Cooperstown to see it...played on Doubleday Field, perhaps...

You can get chills watching the Futures' Game, seeing the, well, future of America's pastime. You'd get more chills, though, watching it after you're reminded, even if just for an afternoon, why its our pastime in the first place.


****


I'm headed to Cooperstown with a couple friends on Saturday 2/15. There's something spectacular about the timing, being the day after Spring Training starts...it'll be my third time there, but the first time I've gone with people as into baseball as I am.

I can't wait.


FOUR days to go.