One distinctly negative thing which came up at the end of the meeting was a letter to the editor from Baseball Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey which appeared in local newspapers last week.

Village Police Chief Diana Nicols told officials she did want the meeting to end on a negative note, but believed she had to express her disappointment at the letter.

Petroskey wrote that he wanted to set the record straight: that the Hall of Fame had nothing to do with the remote parking lots and the buses which shuttled fans to and from the Induction site.

``We had absolutely no involvement in how these private lots and the related bus service was handled,’’ he wrote. ``Because we care deeply about the experience of every one of our visitors, we are distressed that any fans who came to Cooperstown for the inductions of Cal Ripken, Jr. and Tony Gwynn were disappointed by the less-than-satisfactory service of these private lots.’’

``He is denying any involvement in parking. He is completely right. He had no involvement and that’s what bothers me,’’ Nicols said, referring to the fact the Hall basically left it up to local governments and agencies to find places for the Hall of Fame’s visitors to park.

Officials all credited Otsego County Tourism Director Deb Taylor for spearheading the parking effort and agreed that the 1,800 vehicles that didn’t come into the village would have been enough to clog streets and lead to gridlock.

Village trustee Jeff Katz asked what those 1,800 cars would have done to Petroskey’s visitors’ experience.

Nicols said she believed the weekend was 99 percent successful and wants to keep up the teamwork exhibited during the planning process.

``It’s bad manners to point the finger of blame,’’ she said.

Officials agreed the plans for this year’s record-breaking Induction crowd and some of the lessons that were learned will serve as the framework for planning future events.

One of the biggest problems was the difficulty people encountered trying to get back to the remote lots. The shuttle bus pick up and drop off point was changed at the last minute by the bus company from the elementary school to the Induction site at the Clark Sports Center. That change led to additional traffic control problems as the buses were loading and unloading. The buses were also supposed to be running continuously, but stopped during the ceremony.

The Hall of Fame switched the order of the ceremony to get the players inducted first because of fears about foul weather and many fans began to leave at that point. The buses were waiting until after the entire ceremony was over and that began to create a backlog of people waiting for the buses.

By 7:30 p.m. all the remote lots were cleared _ a timeframe many officials in Friday’s meeting thought was reasonable given the size of the crowd.

Chamber of Commerce Director John Bullis commented it can take up to six hours to get out of a NASCAR race.

Jones said he was very proud that he was a part of the group. ``It demonstrated the importance of working together,’’ he said.

Waller said she was totally impressed with how the crowd, was handled.

``We could have had chaos,’’ she said. ``What impressed me the most was the residents. I’m so proud of this village; so proud of this committee,’’ she said.