MLB, NFL HOFs Were Born on This Day

By Dave “Large” Larzelere
January 29, 1936
Seventy-two years ago today the first class of the at-that-point non-existent Baseball Hall of Fame was announced in Cooperstown, NY. It is fair to say that Cooperstown has never seen such an induction class since and never will again. Five players gained admittance to the Hall in that first vote by the writers, five true leviathans of the game – Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner. The actual Hall of Fame itself did not open until three years later.
January 29, 1963
Not to be outdone, twenty-seven years later pro football seized on January 29th to announce its inaugural Hall of Fame class. The Pro Football Hall of Fame, however, actually opened in the same year that it inducted its first members – groundbreaking for the building in Canton, Ohio began in August of 1962 and it was dedicated and opened to the public in September of 1963. Seventeen men gained induction in Canton’s first class, a list that included such immortals as Sammy Baugh, Red Grange, George Halas, Bronko Nagurski and Jim Thorpe.↵