With 48 members of the Baseball Hall of Fame on hand in Cooperstown for the 2023 induction ceremony, it seemed at times as if there were more people on stage than in the crowd.
In spite of their respectable if arguably unspectacular careers, neither of this year’s inductees, Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen, command the kind of fandom that inspires a crowd to make the trek to rural, upstate New York. Attendance estimates for 2023 ranged between 5,000-10,000, considerably lower than the 40,000-50,000 that has been the norm in recent years.
Ironically, what was disappointing to the Hall of Fame and town merchants turned out to be a boon for fans, especially autograph collectors. The crowd was thinner
