Hall of Fame Game/Classic
Each year from 1940 to 2008, Doubleday Field hosted the Hall of Fame Game. Originally a contest between "old-timers" teams, it later became an exhibition game between two major league squads. Traditionally, the game was held during the annual induction weekend of the nearby Baseball Hall of Fame, but in later years it was scheduled in May or June, to accommodate the participating teams' travel schedules. As MLB's last remaining in-season exhibition game, its results did not count in the official standings, and substitute players were generally used to avoid injury to starters. The curiosity factor of two teams from different leagues playing each other in this game outside of a World Series or spring training situation was eventually removed with the launch of interleague play, further reducing the game's cachet.
On January 29, 2008, Major League Baseball announced that the final Hall of Fame Game would be played on June 16, 2008 between the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres, citing "the inherent challenges" of scheduling teams in the modern day as the reason for ending the annual contest. However, the contest was canceled on account of rain.
In November 2008, the Hall of Fame and the MLB Players Alumni Association announced the creation of the Hall of Fame Classic, an exhibition game involving Hall of Famers and other retired MLB players to be played on Father's Day weekend. The inaugural Hall of Fame Classic was played on Sunday, June 21, 2009.
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Famous quotes containing the words hall, fame, game and/or classic:
“Generation on generation, your neck rubbed the windowsill
of the stall, smoothing the wood as the sea smooths glass.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)
“Certainly fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swoln, and drowns things weighty and solid.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“Art is a concrete and personal and rather childish thing after all—no matter what people do to graft it into science and make it sociological and psychological; it is no good at all unless it is let alone to be itself—a game of make-believe, or re-production, very exciting and delightful to people who have an ear for it or an eye for it.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)