Cooperstown, N.Y. – It wasn't the flashiest speech. But then again, Alan Trammell never was the flashiest ballplayer.
So, in that respect, this was vintage Tram – humble from that day in 1977 he arrived in Boston to make his major-league debut, all the way to the very pinnacle, on the Baseball Hall-of-Fame stage on a sun-splashed day in the hills of upstate New York on Sunday.
"Honestly, I didn't think this day would ever come," Trammell, reading classes slipping down his nose, said in the early moments of his speech before a crowd of more than 40,000.