Baseball HOF induction ceremony postponed to 2021

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The National Baseball Hall of Fame has postponed the 2020 induction ceremony until the summer of 2021 due to COVID-19, it announced Wednesday.

Next year's induction weekend, which will include both the Class of 2020 and Class of 2021, is scheduled for July 23 to 26.

"Induction Weekend is a celebration of our National Pastime and its greatest legends, and while we are disappointed to cancel this incredibly special event, the board of directors' overriding concern is the health and well-being of our new inductees, our Hall of Fame members, our wonderful fans and the hundreds of staff it takes to present the weekend's events in all of its many facets," Hall of Fame chairman Jane Forbes Clark said in a statement. "We care deeply about every single person who visits Cooperstown.

"In heeding the advice of government officials as well as federal, state, and local medical and scientific experts, we chose to act with extraordinary caution in making this decision."

Former players Derek Jeter, Larry Walker, and Ted Simmons, along with longtime MLB Players Association executive director Marvin Miller, were scheduled to be inducted into Cooperstown on July 26. Additionally, ceremonies were set to honor Ford C. Frick Award winner Ken "Hawk" Harrelson, J.G. Taylor Spink Award winner Nick Cafardo, and Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award winner David Montgomery.

All of this year's living inductees expressed support for the Hall's decision.

"Being inducted into the Hall of Fame will be an incredible honor, but the health and safety of everyone involved are paramount," Jeter said in a statement. "I respect and support the decision to postpone this year's enshrinement and am looking forward to joining current Hall of Famers, fans, staff, and my family and friends in Cooperstown in 2021."

"I think it's the right thing to do, I really do," Harrelson, the longtime Chicago White Sox broadcaster, told Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this week. "They were going to have 100,000 people there ... I wouldn't want my family going up there."

This marks only the eighth time since the first ceremony in 1939 that the Hall of Fame will not host an induction weekend. It last happened in 1960 when no one was elected.

Next year's combined ceremony will also be the first since 1949 to feature the induction of two classes.

The Hall of Fame has been closed to the public since mid-March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there have been 65 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with four related deaths in Otsego County, New York, according to Johns Hopkins University.