Friday, August 28, 2009

The Evolution of Rickey's Hall of Fame Plaque

The first thing that anyone usually thinks about when they talk of the Baseball Hall of Fame, is the plaque of the player being inducted. There's almost always the question of what hat the inductee will wear (other than in the rare instances, such as Jim Rice, where a player played for one team his entire career), and Rickey was no exception. The pictures below depict the Hall of Fame Plaque Gallery, and the evolution of Rickey's plaque.

Above is a picture looking down at the plaque gallery from a balcony on the second floor. Rickey's plaque is almost directly below this balcony to the right.

The plaques extend down both sides of the gallery, and end in a small rotunda.

It's hard to see, but the Hall of Fame logo is etched into the side of this wall below the atrium.

The plaques of the first inductee class, which includes Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson. It's actually pretty cool that Rickey's plaque is at the end of the gallery, just to the left of these.

This is how the gallery looked the first day that I arrived, with Rickey's plaque nowhere to be found. The plaques are installed in an alternating odd/even pattern to the left and right of the original 1936 plaques, which explains the 2007 plaques on the left.

The day before the induction, placeholders for the plaques went up, which includes the names of Rice, Gordon, and Henderson. I thought this was pretty cool, as this was the only day that it would ever look like this. You can also see that their is a little emblem that has been installed under Joe Gordon's plaque. All of the Hall of Famers who served in the armed forces had an eagle emblem under their plaques indicating the branch of service in which they served, and in what war they fought.

The plaques have been installed!

This is one of the few pictures of myself that I had taken on the trip. It's definitely not one of my favorite pictures, but it could have been worse. Rickey's plaque is on the left of the bottom row.

Here's a close-up of the plaque, with font that it ridiculously small. Compared with the one sentence descriptions on some of the earlier inductees (which I'll post later), they really crammed a lot of information onto the plaque.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

I know this is a bit late, but I've finally gone through and put something together from the 650+ pictures that I took of the actual induction ceremony. It was hard to limit it to a manageable amount, and even though this post will still be a bit long, I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did.

This first picture is of the photographer's "pit" at the front of the stage. My seat was in the third row, which was just crazy! But, it got even better, as after the initial introductions, none of the other photographers stayed in their seats, and all pretty much went up to the stage, so I just followed along.

This is a view from the hill at the back of the lawn, looking towards that stage. I'm not really sure why these people chose to sit this far back, as the grass in the middle never really filled in, but here they were.

As sort of an opposite view from above, this was taken from my seats on the benches, looking back at the crowd. At the very back you can see the tents and canopies on the hill, where I took the previous picture.

As the Hall of Famers filled onto the stage, it was pretty neat watching them interact with each other. In the front row, Hank Aaron is talking to Sandy Koufax, as Yogi Berra turns around to talk with those behind him. Wearing the Giants cap, Willie Mays is checking out the program of the days events.

There were a total of 51 past Hall of Famers present at the event, and it was pretty amazing getting to see them all in one place. They were each announced individually, and acknowledged the crowd, with some more enthusiastic then others. I took pictures of their individual introductions, but they weren't too exciting, and I wasn't able to get them all anyway, so I figured an overall shot would be the best. If there is a Hall of Famer that someone would like some individual shots of, just let me know, and I'll see what I can come up with.

As the ceremony began, I was sitting directly behind Michael Zagaris, the official photographer for the Oakland A's. When I was at the Coliseum for the retiring of Rickey's number, they were playing a slide show of pictures from the induction ceremony, a lot of which were similar to pictures that I had also taken.

After all of the past Hall of Famers were announced, it was time for the new inductees. Wearing a signature white suit, Rickey acknowledges the crowd as Jim Rice looks on.

It looked like it was going to rain for most of the morning, and it did rain fairly hard for about 5 minutes when the ceremony first started. Luckily for me, and my camera, it didn't last very long, and the sun eventually came back out. On the left are Rickey's three daughters, followed by his mom, and finally his wife on the far right. I never would have thought that I'd be sitting in front of them at the ceremony!

Everyone stood for the singing of both the Canadian and American National Anthems.

Joe Gordon's granddaughter accepted his Hall of Fame plaque, and gave a really great speech afterwards.

Of all the times that I saw Jim Rice over the weekend, very few of them was he not smiling. In the picture above, Joe Morgan looks on as Rice gives his induction speech.

Rickey and Bud Selig watched a nearby monitor as highlights and clips of Rickey's career were played.

Most (but not all) of his fellow Hall of Famers were also watching the clips.

Rickey gets his first glimpse of his Hall of Fame plaque, a time that was many years in the making!

Rickey prepares to begin his speech, as his plaque is displayed out front. At this point in time, I'm kneeling in front of the stage, and am probably the closest person to him during the entire speech. This was definitely not what I was expecting, and was way beyond anything that I could have ever imagined.

But, I wasn't always the closest person to the stage, as a few times the official cameraman filming for the MLB Network broadcast would politely step in front.

After the speeches were over, you could tell that everyone was pretty relieved to get them out of the way. I'm sure they'd been stressing over them for quite some time.

These are my favorite non-Rickey pictures of the ceremony. After everything was over, Sparky Anderson "enthusiastically" congratulated Jim Rice, as Johnny Bench look on in the background.

There was actually quite a lot of drama over the above shot. Before the ceremony, the Hall of Fame had decided that only their photographer would be allowed to photograph both of the inductees together with their plaques. This did not go over well with the other photographers, but in the end, everything was worked out.

I couldn't decide which of these shots to include, as I like them all for different reasons, so you get all three of them! I think the first one is my favorite, as the expressions on both of their faces is really great.

After the ceremony was over, Rickey and Jim Rice came back out and did a short interview for the MLB Network with Harold Reynolds.

Finally, is this picture of Rickey from the post-induction press conference. The picture of Rickey himself isn't all that great, but I just love the gigantic Hall of Fame banner that is hanging above him. For some reason, I find it really amusing.

Hopefully everyone was able to hang in to the end, and enjoyed the photo tour of the ceremony. I've still actually got a few more Hall of Fame posts to put together, which I'll get out as soon as I can.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Hall of Fame Inductee Row

On the ground floor of the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, there's a little room before you get to the hallway that leads to the Plaque Gallery. They call this room "Inductee Row," as it includes display cases and exhibits of all of the latest inductees.

On one side of the room was Rickey's display case, along with a poster with a summary of his career.

The other 2009 inductees, Jim Rice and Joe Gordon, shared the other side of the room, which had a bit more space than the corner that Rickey was in.

Here's a close-up of the display case, which had a nice selection of items spanning Rickey's entire career. Most of the items were donated to the Hall by Rickey or his prospective teams, but a few were donated by other individuals, while still others are only on loan for the exhibit.

Along with the display cases, each player also had their own version of the sign above.

A's Jersey from 1981 - The jersey above was worn by Rickey during the 1981 season, and is on loan to the Hall from Mark Simons (I don't know who he is, but I'd be interested to find out). The card describing this jersey also included the fact that Rickey has stolen a total of 24 miles of bases, 90 feet at a time.

Stolen Base from 9/13/1983 (donated by the A's) - This base was from Rickey's 100th steal in 1983, becoming the first player to ever have three seasons with 100+ stolen bases.

Batting Gloves from 5/1/1991 (donated by Rickey & A's)- To me, these might be the ultimate in Rickey collectibles. This pair of Rickey's iconic neon green batting gloves are the ones that he was wearing when he stole his 939th stolen base, breaking Lou Brock's all-time record. The shoes that he was wearing are already displayed in the permanent section of the museum.

Bat from 10/7/2001 (on loan from Rickey) - This is the bat that Rickey used to get his 3,000 hit, which was a double on the last day of the season while playing with the Padres.

1991 Trophy (on loan from Rickey) - The A's had this made in 1991 to commemorate Rickey's breaking of the all-time stolen base record. It's actually pretty similar to the crystal trophy that they recently gave him during his number retirement ceremony.

1987 Yankees hat - Rickey wore this hat while playing for the Yankees in 1987, but it doesn't have any specific significance. But, during the 4 years that he played for the Yanks, he did become the all-time franchise stolen base leader.

Shoes from 8/27/1982 (donated by Rickey) - Rickey wore these shoes when he recorded his 119th steal, breaking Brock's single season record, before continuing on to steal a total of 130 for the season.

Ball from 10/4/2001 (donated by Rickey & Padres) - While playing for the Padres, Rickey hit a home run with this ball (the one in the middle), and then proceeded to score his 2,246th run, breaking Ty Cobb's all-time record.

Ticket from 10/7/2001 (donated by the Padres) - This ticket is to the game in which Rickey recorded his 3,000 hit, which being the last game of the season, also happened to be the last gamge of Tony Gwyn's career.

Ball from 5/22/2002 (donated by Mike Weiss) - This ball (the one on the left in the picture above) was used in a game while Rickey was playing for Boston, and became only the 8th player in history to appear in over 3,000 games. The ball was donated by Mike Weiss, who runs Man Of Steal Sports, and controls Rickey's autograph appearances and memorabilia.

Ball and Hat from 2003 (donated by Mike Weiss) - Rickey wore this hat while playing for the Newark Bears in the Atlantic League in 2003. The ball is from the Atlantic League All-Star game in 2003, of which Rickey was the MVP.