MLB Commissioner Emeritus
Bud Selig yesterday was inducted into the Baseball HOF, outlining his "great journey" in baseball during an 18-minute speech that required more than 30 drafts and spotlighted the sport's deep role in American society. The ceremony drew a crowd of 27,500 to Cooperstown, N.Y. That attendance is down sharply from last year's 50,000 for an induction weekend that included
Ken Griffey Jr. and
Mike Piazza, but represented the fourth straight ceremony in excess of 25,000 (
Eric Fisher, Staff Writer).
Read the full text of Selig's address (
JSONLINE.com, 7/30). Selig "dropped his speech midway through it but never skipped a beat" (
AP, 7/30).
There were 50 HOFers in attendance, and they were "all introduced as part of the induction ceremony" (MONTREAL GAZETTE, 7/31). Officials said that the ceremony "lasted 3 hours and 38 minutes." Locally, reactions were "mixed Sunday about the volume of business, though there was agreement that the weekend remains a key moneymaker for the summer tourist season" (Oneonta DAILY STAR, 7/31).
