The Hall of Fame Game is dead. Long live the Hall of Fame Classic."This is pretty cool," Jim Kaat said during Sunday morning's media session at the Clark Sports Center, which preceded the inaugural Hall of Fame Classic at Doubleday Field. "I think, actually, it makes more sense to have the former players. We have more time; we don't have the rigorous schedule the current players do. I think the fact that the fans will be able to mingle with them, I think it will be a lot better fan experience as well."

Kaat said his first of "several" Fame Game appearances came with the Twins in 1966."We played the Cardinals and they brought up this young pitcher named Steve Carlton to pitch against us," Kaat said. Carlton became a Hall of Famer in 1994.

Kaat also said he understood Major League Baseball's 2008 decision to stop sending teams to Cooperstown to participate in the Fame Game. MLB cited scheduling difficulties as the primary reason for cutting ties to what had been the only in-season exhibition game.

"When you're a current player and you've got an every-day schedule and then you've got to go to the Hall of Fame Game ... it's fun _ I was a baseball fan as a kid _ but it is a little bit of an interruption to the schedule," Kaat said. "It makes more sense to do this."

It made a lot more sense after MLB ended the Fame Game, though.

"Might we have done this? No, it probably forced our hand," Hall of Fame President Jeff Idelson said. "We were in a comfortable pattern with a traditional event that was a sell-out every year. We had always talked about a legends-type of game. My working for the Yankees, we had them every year. You could see the Yankees are such a team steeped in tradition that their fans appreciated it. For us as a village to have that type of event seemed to make sense."

Idelson added it wasn't difficult to find the right players for the first Classic.

"You don't have to look for them because they're there," he said. "The guys who are here, most of them play in a lot of alumni events anyway, but to have it be in Cooperstown on Father's Day weekend in the shadows of the Hall of Fame was meaningful to them."

Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro said the Classic gave him a chance to exchange "old war stories" with former teammates and adversaries, but the most important part of the event was re-connecting with fans.

"I think most of us when we played years ago realized how important the fans were to us," he said. "We all get a chance to show how the game was years ago and here's how we played and here's what we think of it. So, anytime we get a chance to play in these old-timers' games, we go because this is our only chance to reach out to the public and say how great the game was."

Said Kaat: "The game is just sort of a reason to bring us all together, but as far as what happens, it doesn't really mean anything. Visiting with guys in the clubhouse and dugouts and with the fans is more important than the game."

Playing it safe

Starting pitcher Bob Feller trotted to join his teammates on the infield and nearly tipped over. Fellow Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson took a few steps toward first after grounding to short in the first inning and flat-out tripped, his dirt-stained knees proof that the mind was willing but ...

Although most players seemed thrilled to participate in the first Classic, the primary goal for some was getting through the seven-inning exhibition in one piece.

"I'm just thinking about how much pain I may have afterwards," former Reds standout outfielder George Foster said before the Classic. "I'm looking at the recovery time most of all right now."

Kaat said he didn't want to "do anything to ruin my golf swing, like break a thumb or something."

Then there was Hall of Famer Paul Molitor, who took the title of "weekend warrior" to another level.

"I haven't played in a game in five years and I haven't taken batting practice in four years," said Molitor, who led off the Classic with a single to right-center field off Team Collins' starting pitcher Feller. "I think we're just going to try to have fun and see what happens."

The crystal ball goes to Niekro, who may have jinxed Robinson before the game.

"Brooks Robinson is leading off (for Team Wagner)," he said. "He takes the first big cut on my first fastball, I'm going to drop him. He's going down."

Shticking with it

Three tables away from his designated interview chair, Foster chatted with Jon Warden and Niekro during Sunday's pre-game media session at the Clark Sports Center.

Foster is still very big and appears as solid as ever, but he can be very silly.

"You have a poster of me swinging? Was I doing the jitterbug?" Foster said in response to the opening line of a very short and sometimes nonsensical interview.

Asked for his initial reaction to receiving his Classic invitation, Foster said: "I just said I hope I'm not on Kevin Maas' team."

Maas, who later filled the clean-up position for Team Collins, sat within earshot. Foster, who batted in the No. 4 hole for Team Wagner, then continued his stand-up routine.

"I had seen the list (of players) and it was a list of just pitchers and no outfielders. I said, ÂI'm not going to play just for $5.' So I had to get my agent, Jon Warden (also within earshot), and he got it up to $10 and it was much better."

Asked about competing in a game that featured players from different eras such as Steve Finley, Foster said: "Finley, I never did like Finley. Oh no, that was Chuck Finley. With these guys who can hit the ball, they should make those guys bunt. But Jeff Kent's on our team. That's OK, he can swing away."

The last word

Niekro on steroids: "We didn't have any problems like this. Maybe a union thing or more meal money or something like that. There wasn't anything else directly happening on the field. Everybody respected each other and we didn't start fights. Now, it's TV, it's the dollar bill and it's the skyboxes and the big businesses that pay the paychecks. I think we realized how important fans were to us because that's where we were getting our paychecks from.

"The game hasn't changed. There's still nine guys on the field, the bases are 90 feet, the pitcher's mound is 60 feet 6 (inches). Four umpires, foul lines, three strikes, four balls throughout; whoever gets more runs wins the game. That is still there. I'm just not real happy with sometimes the direction of the game and maybe how the players look at it compared to how we looked at it."

Molitor on the Classic: "My only concern when I was asked was I'm not going to be home on Father's Day. I'm going to get home late tonight and I'm going to have a chance to see my young kids and my wife (in Minneapolis), but it's something that I want to be a part of and I was able to work it out. It worked out win-win in every direction.

"You get a lot of requests to do a lot of things during the baseball season and some, right away, you say if I can make that work, I'm going to do it and this was one of those. ... I got the date to see if I could somehow make it happen and I let Jeff (Idelson) know as soon as I could that it was something I could do, so I'm glad he kept me on the list."

Idelson on Feller's start at age 90: "Bob's had 47 years of rest, so he shouldn't be rusty. His arm's lively and he's feeling good. I told him there's no pitch-count."

Fan Joe Rossi on attending with his 5-year-old son, Dominic: "It's his first trip to Cooperstown. This is essentially a village built solely on baseball. He thinks this happens every day in Cooperstown."