Immortality Comes a Day Late : Baseball: Palmer, Morgan are enshrined in the Hall of Fame on a rainy Monday.

It was a day for perspective, perhaps slightly altered by the moment.

“Am I as good as a lot of pitchers here? Probably not,” Jim Palmer said. “But I would have voted for myself.”

Said Joe Morgan: “Mays, Musial and Morgan in the same breath. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that.”

It was a day for emotion.

“She knew she was dying and said, ‘I won’t be in Cooperstown with you.’ She’s in my thoughts today,” Jerome Holtzman said of a daughter who passed away in February.

It was a day for wit.

“Greetings to the mayor, who should think about getting a canopy,” By Saam said.

It was a day late.

“This was not a typical Cooperstown day,” Mayor Harold Hollis said. “We did the best we could.”

Palmer, Morgan, Holtzman and Saam were inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame Monday, a day after the ceremony was postponed because of rain.

It rained again Monday and, in a departure from the norm, the four made their induction speeches from the stage of the Cooperstown high school auditorium, with Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Stan Musial and Willie Stargell sitting with them.

Seating in the auditorium was limited to invited guests and media members. Just in case someone didn’t know where to go, the superintendent of schools was on hand to direct traffic.

Another group watched on a big-screen TV wheeled into the carpeted cafeteria. The lunch tables were moved out of the way and seats were borrowed from classrooms.

Most of the fans, however, stood outside in the rain and listened to the ceremonies on loudspeakers that are usually used to announce the end of recess.

The annual Hall of Fame exhibition game, scheduled between Baltimore and Montreal, was cancelled.

“I’m sorry a lot of people who came to share this moment with me didn’t see it,” Palmer said. “This is a celebration of what the game is all about.”

Palmer pitched to a career record of 268-152 and a 2.86 earned run average with the Baltimore Orioles and played on World Series champions in 1966, ’70 and ’83.

Morgan won consecutive MVP awards in 1975 and ‘76, helping the Cincinnati Reds to the World Series championship each year. He had a lifetime average of .271 with 268 homers and 1,133 runs batted in.

Morgan and Palmer were each elected to the Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility after careers noted for winning numbers on winning teams.

Holtzman, a baseball writer in Chicago for 29 years, was the recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink award; and Saam, longtime voice of the Philadelphia Phillies, was inducted into the broadcasters wing.