Musings From Cooperstown

Earlier this week Shank took a trip to upstate New York:

Baseball’s split from its past feels more severe than previous shifts, and more observations from Cooperstown

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Old people think things were better in the old days. Young people like the way things are. It’s the natural order of life.

The Baseball Hall of Fame’s Induction Weekend brought this point home as I prowled the inner sanctum of the Hall’s plaque gallery, plus the ancient Otesaga Hotel where Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson were enshrined as the first Hall class in 1936.

Bet those hardball legends had quarrels with the way the game was being played at the time. Crusty old-timers always insist things were better in their day. Nap Lajoie probably told Ruth and Co. that the game was better in the 19th century, when men were men.

All that said, the current version of this universal push-pull is truly different. In the summer of 2025, baseball is largely unrecognizable to old-time greats and, even worse, today’s Hall of Famers increasingly feel estranged from the people who run the game. Analytics and new methods of teaching have removed the endearing layer of tutelage that’s always connected the sport.

Dwight Evans, Hall of Famer?

Shank certainly feels that way, with a pretty good column to back it up.

Could this be the year Dwight Evans makes the Hall of Fame?

New England baby boomer sports fans are a romantic lot. In this spirit there are local athletes from the 1960s and 70s who enjoy a lifetime of love owed to accomplishments from 30 or 40 years ago. Not necessarily Hall of Famers, the local legends are routinely showered with affection if they appear at a card show or merely stroll around the corridors of Fenway, Gillette, or the Boston Garden.

These are guys like Luis Tiant, Terry O’Reilly, Bill Lee, Steve Grogan, Freddie Lynn . . .
And Dwight Evans.

Dewey. Best right fielder we ever saw. The man who made The Catch of Joe Morgan’s long drive in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. The man who got the big hits and provided the big moments in those years when the Red Sox annually almost won it all.