Baseball fans traveled from across the world to see this year’s National Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony Sunday, July 26.
Carols Beltrán, Andruw Jones and Jeff Kent made up the 2026 class of inductees honored at The Clark Sports Center. Fans braved the sun and residents selling $40 front lawn parking spaces to watch some of their favorite players accept the honor.
Jones fan Brooks Knight, 11, said it was “absolutely” worth the trip from South Carolina in his family’s van. He wore an Atlanta Braves jersey.
“We saw a bunch of memorabilia of all MLB history,” he said. “It was pretty neat” to walk around downtown Cooperstown, he added.
Many came from even farther.
Ken Johnson said he flew from San Francisco to Philadelphia to watch the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers play a game before making the drive up to Cooperstown.
A San Francisco Giants fan wearing a jersey to show it, Johnson said “as you might guess, we’re here primarily for Jeff Kent. I made a promise to my son many years ago that if Jeff ever got elected, I’d take him to Cooperstown.
“Took a while, but Jeff did his part, so here we are,” Johnson said.
For many attendees, the ceremony was as much about the individual players as it was the cultural heritage they represented. Jones became the first Hall of Fame inductee from the Caribbean island country of Curaçao. Beltrán is from the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Fans flew the flags of each in the crowd.
“Everywhere I play baseball, I always try to represent my identity,” Beltrán said during his acceptance speech. He raised a Puerto Rican flag to cheers and thanked his parents in Spanish for their love and support.
Miguel Ramos, a Beltrán fan who said his family moved from Puerto Rico to Allentown, Pennsylvania, about 16 years ago, said he felt “the Latino flavors, they give you a different vibe” during the ceremony.
Ramos said he and his family were impressed by Cooperstown and Otsego Lake and planned to come back in the fall.
They planned to “spend like four or five days here to be close to the area and explore more” and see “the people, the restaurants, the stores,” he said.