COOPERSTOWN -- For most of the country, the small village of Cooperstown is known for one thing - the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Numerous memorabilia and baseball card shops line Main Street. Even salons and restaurants are baseball themed. Cooperstown draws visitors all year but induction weekend brings the real crowds.
"You have the high ones of Cal Ripken Jr. at eighty thousand plus, you have more average years of fifteen to twenty thousand people," said Patricia Szarpa from the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce.
Not a single player on the ballot received enough votes from baseball writers to be inducted in 2013.
There will be an induction ceremony in July for deceased players from the 1930's, but for the first time since 1996, no living players are going into the hall.
At the Seventh Inning Stretch memorabilia store on Main Street, owner Rick Turner said he understands why voters want to keep players from the steroid era out. At the same time, Turner acknowledged this was the worst possible news for his shop.
"It's going to sting a lot. That's usually a quarter of our sales for the year - that weekend. And if they're not inducting anybody - there's going to be less people here," said Turner.
Hall of Fame induction weekend is the biggest weekend of the year but they also have thousands of youth baseball players coming through over the course of the summer.
150 to 170 teams play each week at Doubleday Field during the summer. A lot of those players then stop by The Cooperstown Bat company for a custom souvenir. Owner Connie Haney says those guests provide consistent sales but she wishes they were producing customized bats for each player in the 2013 Hall of Fame class like they have every other year.
"We obviously have to abide by the voters and go with what we're given but it was a sad day for us," said Haney.
Even as shops and restaurants prepare for a smaller crowd on induction weekend, many were also reminded of one of the most famous sayings in sports - there's always next year.
