|
Friday, March 28, 2008March 28 2008Petroskey Go-Go Era At Hall of Fame Ends President, Directors Part Ways By JIM KEVLIN  COOOPERSTOWN Characteristically, Dale Petroskey agreed to talk about the accomplishments at the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum over the past nine years on one condition. “These are not things I did alone,” he said, the day after he’d tendered his resignation to the HoF Board of Directors’ executive committee. “What I’m proud of is things we did as a team at the Hall of Fame. I’m proud they happened on my tenure at the Hall of Fame.” For now, Jeff Idelson, Petroskey’s vice president for communications and education, has been named acting president while a search for a new president ensues. Back to Petroskey: “We helped to turn 63 Hall of Famers into a close-knit family, a cohesive group, more excited about the Hall and more excited about helping us reach our goals ... Hall of Famers – AND their spouses.” At the time Petroskey shifted from a top job at the National Geographic Society to president of the Hall of Fame in 1999, some 30 Hall of Famers would make the annual pilgrimage here for Induction Weekend. Now, that number is routinely over 50. “The only ones not coming back,” said the Detroit Tigers fan, “were those who were ill, too old, or with a team.” He then quickly ticks off a checklist of accomplishments: • Relationships – Through intensive staff training, “we’ve become very good at relationships with a number of different groups,” beginning with ensuring the regular flow of visitors has a good experience at 25 Main. “Professionalism” is the goal at all levels. • Membership – It’s risen from 4,000 to 31,000 during Petroskey’s tenure. • Fundraising – Revenues have increased in a number of categories – in some cases, from zero – to the point that the Hall ran in the black in 2007, a rarity for a museum. Greg Harris was brought aboard as director of development. • Finishing what Jackie Robinson started – A systematic five-year program reviewed the careers of stand-out players, managers and executives from the Negro Leagues, to ensure every worthy player would get a plaque. In 2006, 17 were inducted at one time, “a very proud moment.” • Education – From none, some 15 million students have benefited from the Hall’s educational program under Jeff Arnett. • Stronger relationship with Major League Baseball – The result was a first-of-its-kind major gift from MLB to the Hall in 2007. • Outreach – A traveling exhibit, “Baseball As America,” has visited 15 cities, beginning in New York in 2002 and ending in Boston this summer. Foremost, the Hall of Fame itself underwent a $20 million renovation and modernization, completed in 2005. Petroskey was interviewed the morning after the announcement hit Cooperstown like a bombshell: At 4:59 p.m. Tuesday, March 25, HoF Director of Communications Brad Horn pushed the “send” button and the message went out around the world. “By mutual agreement,” said the press release, “the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum has accepted the resignation of Dale Petroskey as President.” Within seconds, the news had been posted on usatoday.com, and Baseball Digest’s and the International Herald Tribune’s web sites. At 3 p.m., the HoF staff had been summoned in a body to the Grandstand Theater. Standing at the front were Jane Forbes Clark, HoF chairman and granddaughter of Stephen C. Clark, the Hall’s founder, and Idelson. The press release was read to the surprised audience. No questions were taken. A number of theories about what happened circulated during the evening, many having to do with purported financial peccadillos of past employees, discovered too late. But the next morning no one could be found willing to give an authoritative account. The press release said the executive committee concluded the president “failed to exercise proper fiduciary responsibility,” but Horn was quickly emphasizing nothing that happened was criminal in nature, and no one was saying Petroskey had benefited in any way from whatever it was that had gone on. Be that as it may, the reaction locally was shock and disappointment. “The relationship between the village and the Hall of Fame was great,” Mayor Carol B. Waller said of the Petroskey years. “I was just as shocked as everyone else at last night’s news.” In addition to serving on the village trustees’ Doubleday Field committee, Petroskey had been asked to serve on the 2025 Planning Commission the mayor hopes to form soon after the trustees’ April 7 reorganizational meeting that follows the March 18 municipal elections. “He’s always been a major contributor when his schedule allowed,” said Trustee Jeff Katz, who chairs the Doubleday committee. “I never had anything but great encounters with Dale.” Ted Hargrove, proprietor of TJ’s Place and one of Main Street’s leading baseball merchants, said, “He was a great guy.” A Michigan native, Petroskey graduated from Michigan State in 1978 along with the Ann Holliday Grover; the two soon married. After working on a Congressional campaign in his native state, Petroskey found himself on Capitol Hill and joined the staff of U.S. Rep. William Goodling, the Pennsylvania Republican. By 1985, he was in the Reagan White House as assistant press secretary. In 1987, he joined the National Geographic Society, where he spent the next 11 years, the last three as a senior vice president. In 1999, he became only the fifth person in the Hall of Fame’s then-60-year history to assume the presidency. The Petroskeys bought a house at Main and Fair streets, just across from the Hall of Fame, and their children, Kathleen, Frank and Claire, went through middle and high school at CCS. Along with Petroskey’s accomplishment, there were occasional controversies. In 2003, actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins had been invited to town to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the movie “Bill Durham.” After the two criticized the recently launched war in Iraq, Petroskey withdrew the invitation. He later apologized. But for Petroskey, there were also high points of community service, including serving as a Little League and Pony League baseball coach. His son, who is now playing for the University of Vermont, was one of the stars of the 2007 CCS team that won the sectionals. When local star athlete Chris Gentile died in a car crash in April 2007, Petroskey – he had coached Chris in Little League – was called upon to give the eulogy to a standing-room-only crowd at the funeral service in CCS’ Bursey Gym. Petroskey said he has no immediate plans, but no shortage of interests. “I enjoy being with people,” he said. “I enjoy being with athletes. I enjoy being with stimulating people. I enjoy sports and baseball. I have a very keen interest in politics.” No, he quickly replied, he has no plans to run for anything. ‘Mr. Otsego County’ David Brenner Honored For ‘Cat-Herding’ Prowess County Board Ex-Chair On List With Jane Forbes Clark, Bassett’s Streck  By JIM KEVLIN ONEONTA A year ago, Dave Brenner had a cancer scare. He’d just turned 72, too old, he was told, for that particular operation. A second physician, however, discovered his heart was as strong as that of a 50-year-old. His cholesterol level was fine; so was his blood pressure. Today, you’ll see a David W. Brenner who’s fully recovered, brimming with the energy and vitality that carried him through 33 years at SUNY Oneonta, a career he juggled with 16 years on the county Board of Representatives, including three as chairman, and 12 years as mayor of Oneonta. “I’ve always had a lot of energy and stamina,” he said the other day in an interview in his modern Central Avenue ranch home, surrounded by hills, in the Town of Oneonta. “I could work night and day.” That’s part of it, but that’s not the only reason Brenner is receiving the Eugene Bettiol Jr. Citizen of the Year Award from the Otsego Chamber of Commerce, joining such past honorees as Jane Forbes Clark and Bassett CEO Bill Streck. It is his ability “to herd cats,” as Otsego Chamber Executive Director Rob Robinson put it. When you think about it, the chairman of the county board has one vote, same as the 13 other members. Oneonta has a “weak mayor” system of government; the mayor can only vote when it’s needed to break a tie. As a SUNY dean, Brenner was dealing with tenured cats at that, a particularly independent breed. Yet his tenure at the county was characterized by steady progress from what, in effect, was a glorified highway department to a full-service modern government offering programs as varied as mental-health counseling to participating in a three-county municipal solid-waste authority – at the outset, even funding a Bookmobile was controversial. “Some of us forget those early battles, and they seem sort of primitive now,” he said, sitting behind a cluttered desk in his basement office, the bookcase behind him stuffed with political-science tomes, from half a shelf of Bob Woodward’s burrowings to Lee Atwater’s “Bad Boy” and Samuel G. Freedman’s “The Inheritance,” on one family’s evolution from the New Deal through Reaganomics. Winning the mayoralty in 1986, he put City Hall on a business-like basis, raising the salaries of the city’s administrators and, in return, requiring accountability. He developed an Administrative Manual, codifying policies. And he successfully negotiated a lion’s share of the county sales tax for Oneonta. How did he accomplished that, a reporter from sales-tax-starved Cooperstown asked. “Moral suasion,” he replied, a twinkle in his eye, then threw back his head in a hearty laugh. It was more like this. Harold Hollis, Cooperstown mayor and former longtime Freeman’s Journal editor, had been among those agitating for a review of how sales-tax revenues were being distributed. Brenner’s strategy: Don’t just reslice the pie. Create a bigger pie – another percent was added to the sales tax – and give everybody a bigger piece. At that time, the towns hadn’t been getting any sales tax, so supervisors were delighted by the relative pittance would now get. Cooperstown was in better financial and physical shape then it is now, so the sales tax wasn’t an issue. Oneonta got millions in the new formula, millions it is still benefitting from today. “When you look at problems of government,” he said, “you have to look at what’s best for the longterm.” Dave Brenner’s cat-herding training began early, in his Newburgh boyhood. Being the oldest of 10 children – eight survived to adulthood – makes you “a surrogate parent long before you want to be.” His father worked in a factory, and the family had to scrape by. Young David learned “there are a lot of things I could do without.” Living in the southern Catskills, boys like Dave were naturally interested in the girls who came up with their families during the summer. That curiosity caused him to drive one day to a particular gathering spot, an old general store in Monroe. There he met his future bride, Lois, now his wife of more than a half-century. She was 16; he 17. “I met this boy with a green cap and red hair,” she told her mother that evening. “And he had two of the cutest puppies in the back of his car.” After military service, he and Lois married, he obtained his GED, and the two of them headed up to Oneonta – he had hitchhiked through the region some years before – to get his college degree on the G.I. Bill. He was the first family member to graduate from high school, much less college, and he told himself – if only he could get a secure job that would pay him a living wage – he would strive to get into public service, to give something back. He graduated, taught for two years at Schenevus, and was summoned back to SUNY Oneonta to supervise student teachers. Before too many years, he was director of records and registration, then registrar, dean, retiring in 1988 as associate vice president for academic affairs. This career arc – fueled by a master’s, then a doctorate in political science from SUNY Albany – allowed him to fulfill that early pledge. As children Janice, Donald and Douglas were growing up, their father embarked on his parallel public service career. He served on the Oneonta Reapportionment Commission, as an aide to two assemblymen, then got himself elected in 1970 to the first county board to succeed the old Board of Supervisors. “It was kind of old vs. new, with a little bit of anti-Oneonta bias thrown in,” he said. Leaning back in his chair, Brenner begins recalling political battles and combatants of long ago. John Owens’ firing as public defender. Still wet behind the ears, Brenner challenged Guy Rathbun – unsuccessfully – for the chairmanship. Putting MOSA together. Saving the old courthouse in Cooperstown – he and Charlie Bateman, Mayor Carol B. Waller’s dad, made common cause – was a close thing. The vote hinged on county Rep. Les Olmstead of Richfield Springs: “As long as he stayed with us, we were OK.” Presiding in the front of the legislative chambers at 197 Main, he saw a couple of pro-demolition representatives talking with Olmstead. Calling a recess, Brenner button-holed him in the hall. Yes, Olmstead said, they were trying to make him change his mind, but he wouldn’t budge. Brenner reconvened the meeting and the historic structure was saved by an 8-6 vote. One of Brenner’s finest hours came long after he retired from the Oneonta mayoralty in 1998. Just last year he was contracted by the Board of Representatives to study whether the county should shift to a county-manager form of government. His study – of a dozen other counties – was exhaustive. His conclusion: Yes, the county should make the shift. But, he said, the animosity among the 14 representatives – the Democrats had seized control by allying with maverick Republican Don Lindberg of Worcester – made it impossible to do at that time. Without a near-unanimous commitment, a county manager was almost certain to fail. That recommendation is still out there, and may be a future Brenner accomplishment. For now, he draws satisfaction from such projects as the war memorial in Oneonta’s Neahwa Park. Another satisfaction: When adoptive parents come up to him and thank him for referring them to social services, and tell him how their children are doing. ‘The Army Will Be...At Lake Otsego,’ General Declared NYSHA Acquires Rare Clinton Letter COOPERSTOWN   You may know – many people don’t – that letters Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr wrote back and forth before their history-altering duel have resided in the NYSHA Library for decades.You may know that the notes written by the physician who attended Abraham Lincoln as he lay dying across the street from the Ford Theater are also owned by the New York State Historical Association. So you can see why Wayne Wright, NYSHA Library associate director, was so excited when the phone rang in February and he was offered a find he considers third only to those two historic caches. On the other end of the line was a dealer who had a June 27, 1779, letter from Gen. James Clinton to his brother, Revolutionary War Gov. George Clinton. “I would also inform you that all the boats, stores, provisions, baggage of the Army will be at the landing of Lake Otsego next Wednesday, at which time I intend (to) move all the troops to that place and wait Genl. Sullivan’s orders for embarkation,” the general wrote the governor. The letter set the stage for one of the most famous episodes of the American Revolution. At the future site of Cooperstown, Clinton dammed the mouth of the Susquehanna, allowing Otsego Lake’s waters to back up a couple of feet. The dam was then blown up, and hundreds of barges floated downstream to reconnoiter with – and supply – Gen. John Sullivan’s waiting troops. That allowed the combined army to destroy an estimated 40 Iroquois settlements between the future Oneonta and Binghamton, ending the tribe’s effectiveness as an ally to the British. The event is memorialized every Memorial Day weekend through the General Clinton Regatta, canoe races that start in Cooperstown and go as far down the Susquehanna as 70 miles. This year’s races are May 23-28. “It’s important,” Wright said, waving his arm to the east as he stood in the conference room at the NYSHA Library, “because its talking about things that happened right outside out these windows ... It belongs here.” The dealer overnighted the document – and a second one, a transcription of the speech a delegation of 10 Oneidas delivered to Clinton at the mouth of the Susquehanna eight days later – to NYSHA in February, so it would be on site during a scheduled visit by U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-24. Wright had two people look at the letters. Wendell Tripp, the professor and former NYSHA director of publications, who “saw nothing suspicious about it,” Wright said. The second, retired NYSHA conservator C.R. Jones, identified the paper, ink and watermark as being from the appropriate era. The second document, similar ink on similar paper, although in a different hand, was reproduced verbatim in William L. Stone’s 1838 “Life of Joseph Brant-Thayendanegea.” Negotiations ensued. A gift was received to pay the asking price. And the deal was finalized the week of March 17. Wright was uncomfortable discussing the donor or the price, but book collector Gail Larsen of Tintagel Books, East Springfield, said the local content of the documents would increase their value. James Clinton’s signature alone, she said, would be worth $300. Attached to a note, perhaps $700. But the local content would increase the price an unspecified amount, particularly if there was another bidder for the material. Seward At The Table For Historic Moment Bruno ‘Quizzical’ About nytimes.com Report Joe Bruno convenes the Republican state senators at 1:30 p.m. every Monday afternoon. The majority whip, Jim Seward, R-Milford, sits next to him. So he was a witness to history at 1:55 p.m. Monday, March 10, when an aide handed Bruno an article ripped from nytimes.com. “He looked at the paper, and had this quizzical look on his face,” Otsego County’s state senator recounted the other day during a visit to Village Hall to announce a $10,000 grant to the Cooperstown Concert Series. “He got up and read it to all of us.” The New York Times’ web site had just reported that Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who had targeted powerful GOP Senate Majority Leader Bruno for political destruction – and worse – had been linked to a prostitution ring and was about to speak to a hastily called press conference. “It was so bizarre,” Seward said, adding the senators thought the governor was about to resign. “It was almost like it was unreal.” The 30-some Republicans then piled into Bruno’s nearby office to catch the press conference – Spitzer, with first lady Silda by his side, expressing remorse – on what was the closest available TV set. Two days later, at a second press conference, again with his wife by his side, Spitzer resigned. Looking ahead, Seward – he worked with David Paterson when the new governor was state Senate minority leader – anticipates the biggest change will be in style. In contrast to Spitzer’s hard-driving, take-no-prisoners reputation, “Peterson is very congenial,” the senator said. “Everybody likes David Paterson. He keeps his word. He tries to work things out instead of being combative.” One of Spitzer’s stated goals was to reclaim control of the state Senate from the Republicans, which would give the Democrats control of both houses as well as the Governor’s Mansion. But Seward, who is facing his first challenge since 1996, from Don Barber, a Tompkins County town supervisor, declined to speculate whether that drive will continue. He did note, however, that Paterson may not have the same access to fundraising that his predecessor did. For the past year, Spitzer’s relationship with Bruno had been complicated by “Troopergate,” where gubernatorial aides had leaked records of the Senate majority leader’s use of a state helicopter, at least in part, for political purposes. During investigations by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and local prosecutors, Spitzer had claimed only minimal knowledge of what was going on. In the past few days, however, the New York Times reported that Darren Dopp, the aide most connected with Troopergate, had told a grand jury Spitzer was deeply involved. Labels: Archives
Subscribe to Posts [Atom] |
|
 |
