Not Everything Here Can Be Had for Peanuts

Good grief!

Is that Charlie Brown, one of the world’s worst pitchers (even in this expansion-diluted era), sharing featured wall space in the Hall of Fame with Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa? Sure enough. Not far from the attractive display titled “The Great American Home Run Chase,” there’s another titled “You’re in the Hall of Fame, Charlie Brown.”

“What this shows is that baseball is big enough and pervasive enough in American society that there’s room for whimsy as well,” Hall president Dale Petroskey said of the museum’s tribute to the late Charles M. Schulz, the Peanuts creator who dedicated almost 10% of his 1,800 cartoon strips to a baseball theme.

Or as Hall vice president Jeff Idelson noted, referring to the captain of the Schulz team (with apologies to Lucy and Snoopy):

“Who’s been a better ambassador for the sport?”

Sparky Anderson, Tony Perez and Carlton Fisk are joining Charlie Brown in the Hall today. About 47 of the 57 living members of the Hall are expected to attend the induction ceremonies. They, too, are ambassadors--it’s simply that some of their ambassador duties come with a price these days.

On induction weekend, when the 2,200 population of this village by Otsego Lake can expand to 50,000 or more, the memorabilia shops that stretch the length of Main Street are fronted by tables at which Hall of Famers from Willie Mays to Bob Feller to Enos Slaughter to Gaylord Perry sell their autographs for anywhere from $3 to $50 per signature--with lines forming to the left.

It is estimated by knowledgeable sources that Mays was paid $75,000 for a weekend appearance at a table just up Main Street from the Pete Rose Museum, where baseball’s banned hit king was making his annual visit here, selling his autograph for $35 per request.

Many old-timers, of course, now earn more from card and memorabilia show signings than they did while playing.

The late Joe DiMaggio, whose highest salary with the New York Yankees was $100,000, demanded and received $125,000 or more per appearance.

For many, it has become a second and bigger pension, and who can blame them if the market is there?

It’s just that in Cooperstown, on a weekend in which baseball is romanticized by gray-haired men recalling boyhood dreams, when fathers walk hand in hand with sons, the charm--to a large degree--has yielded to crass commercialism.

Is it too naive to think it’s the wrong time and place?

“Look,” Idelson said, taking a pragmatic view, “getting autographs has always been a historical part of the game. Go back to the ‘40s and ‘50s. People would carry a little autograph book to the park, hoping to get a signature that would make them feel closer to their favorite player. There’s obviously a different tone to it now, but I don’t think it hurts or helps. It’s a business, like everything else.”

Or almost everything. The museum that remains the heart of Cooperstown held its own autograph session this weekend, with all of the Hall of Famers signing free for children 13 and under. In addition, the museum does not buy its memorabilia. Of its 35,000 artifacts (balls, bats, caps, gloves, etc.), 130,000 baseball cards and 2 1/2 million library items, all were donated by players, fans, clubs and others.

“In my six years here, you can count on Mordecai Brown’s [three-fingered] hand the number of times I’ve been turned down by a player,” Idelson said. “Ninety-nine times out of a hundred they’re honored when asked to contribute and be part of history.”

There are exceptions. Idelson wouldn’t discuss it, but sources said the Hall has nothing from Cal Ripken Jr.’s streak in which he broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played. Ripken is said to have retained it all, although Hall officials privately hope he will part with some when he retires.

Few, by contrast, have been more generous than McGwire and Sosa, whose home run dramatics during the 1998 and ’99 seasons revived flagging attendance at the museum.

“Our attendance is like a pendulum that reflects the popularity of the game at any certain time,” Idelson said. “In the aftermath of the 1994 labor problems, the attendance drop-off was horrific. In the last two years, because of McGwire and Sosa, we’ve regained almost 100,000 of the 125,000 we lost.”

On Sept. 9, 1998, when Idelson returned from St. Louis with the bat McGwire had used the night before to hit his 62nd home run and break the Roger Maris record (Idelson also carried the Maris bat he had taken to show McGwire and Sosa), fans and news crews mobbed the Albany airport, and state troopers ultimately had to close Main Street because of the crowds. Idelson ultimately stood on the steps of the Hall, holding the booty overhead in response to the cheers.

“It was like I was carrying the Mona Lisa,” he said. “It was like something out of a movie. People just wanted to be close to history. We were packed here the day after the record was broken, and the attendance continued to climb almost every weekend after that. We set records for October, November and December. I suspect it’s a phenomenon we’ll never see again.”

Fans here for the inductions this weekend were still flocking to the McGwire/Sosa exhibit, as they were to the Charlie Brown exhibit. There are about 50 Peanuts strips on the walls, and in one, Lucy has gone to the mound to complain to Charlie Brown that they have pulled the hidden-ball trick but can’t remember where they hid the ball. Could it be that someone took it to Main Street to get it signed--for a price?