theathleticuk
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.
There they were, side by side, for just a moment, in the middle of the Hall of Fames iconic plaque gallery.
On the left stood the commissioner of baseball, Rob Manfred.
On the right was the head of baseballs players union, Bruce Meyer.
They werent there Saturday evening to solve the problems of baseball.
They were simply there because this was the place where the baseball world gathered for a festive cocktail party on Hall of Fame induction weekend.
Advertisement And somehow because this is how life on the cocktail party circuit works sometimes their paths converged, maybe 30 yards from Babe Ruths plaque and just around the corner from the goosebumpy Ted Williams sculpture.
They shook hands, had a brief, seemingly amiable exchange, then went their separate ways.
But as I watched them chat, it hit me.
If youre like me, youre looking for something, anything to offer hope that with the current collective bargaining agreement expiring in December, the labor war ahead wont shut down this sport for weeks or months at a time next year.
Well, I think I just stumbled upon a brilliant idea: Just conduct every future negotiating session right there in that spot.
Lets take this labor show on the road, OK? No more dueling, impersonal press releases, emails and social media barrages.
No more cold, tense meetings in the closest boardroom.
You want to talk? You want to nudge this sport to the edge of the cliff? Fine.
I dare you to do that talking and do that nudging in the plaque gallery of the Hall of Fame, with the legends of baseball looking over the shoulders of the negotiators who hold the fate of this sport in their hands.
So on Sunday, I ran that brainstorm past Meyer, as we awaited the Induction Day ceremony at the Clark Sports Center.
Lets just say he admired my effort to inspire this peace mission, but he wasnt quite ready to jump on board my little Save the Sport Express.
Oh, well.
A few feet away, though, I struck up a conversation with Gary Mintz, a Giants fan who had come to Cooperstown to cheer on the induction of Jeff Kent.
Since he clearly loved baseball and this magical town that celebrates it, I decided to let Mintz in on my master plan to head off Labor Armageddon.
What, I asked, would he think of the idea of holding every negotiation in that plaque gallery? Then, I said, both sides couldnt help but remember what was at stake.
Was I right? Advertisement Absolutely true, said Mintz, a native New Yorker who is also the president of the New York Giants Preservation Society.
Ive been selected a few times to speak at the Cooperstown Symposium.
They have a dinner in the plaque room, and its just a place that you need to be.
And if they were in there, with the history of the game all around them, maybe theyd get things done.
I know what I feel about the power of baseball when Im in that room.
So I wanted to know what Mintz feels.
What is it about those plaques, hanging on those walls, that make you understand why baseball matters in so many lives, not just the lives of the folks at the bargaining table? These are the greatest players who ever played, he said.
So you forget about strikes.
You forget about all the other hot stuff.
Youre just sitting in the midst of greatness.
He couldnt have said that better.
But it isnt just random baseball fans and hopelessly romantic baseball writers who feel these vibes.
Its also the Hall of Famers themselves who feel them.
In January, the newly inducted Andruw Jones walked through that plaque gallery for the first time since being elected.
He was there for a Hall of Fame press conference with the other new inductee, Carlos Beltran.
But when it ended, I couldnt help but notice what Jones did next.
He began to stroll around the room, with the camera app open on his phone.
He then stopped at the plaques of every one of his Hall of Fame Braves teammates and snapped a photo of their plaques.
He was one of them now, and he wanted to soak in the connection and the power of those plaques.
It was just 10 minutes out of his day.
But that memory, of watching him float around that room, has stuck with me for the past six months.
So this weekend, I told him how special I thought that photo session was, and asked him about what inspired him to do it.
Advertisement Jones answer, in essence, was that these are more than just plaques.
That gallery is where the careers of all these great players spring back to life, on demand.
All it takes to bring them back is to simply stare at those plaques.
When I was here when I was young, Jones said, I did the same thing.
Except I went around the room and took pictures of all the plaques of all the center fielders, because those were my heroes, and I wanted to be one of them.
A couple of hours later, I ran into longtime Twins catcher Joe Mauer, now two years removed from his own Hall of Fame induction weekend.
I found myself telling him the story of Andruw Jones and his special reverence for the plaques in that room.
Mauer shook his head.
He knew exactly what I was talking about.
I did that, too, Mauer said.
I took photos of my guys with the Twins.
He began to recite the names: Kirby Puckett, Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Dave Winfield, Jim Kaat.
He had photos in his phone of their plaques, too.
These werent just plaques on a wall.
They were history lessons that shaped the history of the only franchise hed ever played for.
Before his own induction, Mauer said, hed visited the Hall twice once for the 2004 Hall of Fame game, which he played in, then again in 2022 for the inductions of Oliva and Kaat.
So he thought hed seen enough to understand the magic of this place until his next visit let him know he didnt understand anything.
It wasnt until I got elected that January and flew in here that I really felt it, Mauer said.
We got in late at night.
Then, first thing the next morning, they brought us in for our orientation.
Adrian Beltre and I were walking through that room (the plaque gallery).
And all of a sudden, we just looked at each other.
We never said a word, but I knew what that look meant.
Advertisement It was a look that meant: Look around this room.
What the heck are we doing in this room, hanging out with the legends? The plaque gallery.
Its the Sistine Chapel of baseball.
On Sunday morning, I struck up a conversation with Ted Simmons, who wasnt elected to the Hall until 32 years after hed played the final game of his career.
I asked him what he feels when he looks at his plaque these days, five years after his own Induction Day.
Well, for me, it was such a long journey to get there, Simmons said.
And to realize that is something that actually happened is really beyond my ability to describe.
But Simmons, too, cant look at just his own plaque without taking a tour around the room.
Then, he recounted, I go over and look at (Al) Kalines plaque.
And then I go over and look at (Mickey) Mantles plaque.
Then I go over and look at (Carl) Yastrzemskis plaque.
And then I go back to mine.
And once he finishes that circuit, to remind himself of the meaning of the great players who left an imprint on his own career, Simmons has one more plaque to celebrate.
He was once an active, engaged member of the players union in his day.
So he is keenly aware that the most meaningful plaques in that room dont all belong to players.
Then, Simmons said, I look up at the plaque above mine and say how lucky I am to have come all this way and end up this close to Marvin Miller.
Miller, of course, was the driving force behind the rise of the players union.
And he was such a controversial figure within the sport that he wasnt elected to the Hall until 2020 more than half a century after he went to work for the union.
But his plaque is a reminder that if these two sides just follow my master plan, it wont be merely the baseball-playing icons who will be watching.
The story of this sport is told inside that room in so many ways, through the tales chiseled into those plaques and the portraits of the men who weaved those tales.
Its impossible to spend five minutes in the plaque gallery and not feel their presence.
So all I ask of the folks on both sides is to come back here, to this room, to this Hall, to this town and never leave.
Advertisement Take these labor talks in whatever direction youd like.
But when the legends are peering down upon you, ready to stare into your eyes any time you look up, you can feel what theyre thinking: Fix this.
Solve this.
Dont break this.
The one constant through all the years is baseball.
And what we learned from another spectacular induction weekend in Cooperstown is, its time to think of that beauty, that power and that chain of history because that matters more than any of the dollar signs youre about to fight over.