COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.— Sometime late Monday afternoon one of the grandest of baseball traditions will end — and only the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres will be able to boast — or lament — that they played the final Hall of Fame Game.

Kristian Connolly still can't believe Major League Baseball is ending the lone exhibition game left on the schedule and one so closely linked to the game's beginnings. So he's working to save it.

"I love my hometown, I love baseball, and this was a decision that was going to hurt both," said Connolly, a 30-year-old who grew up in Cooperstown and interned at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. "Simply throwing in the towel on a nearly 70-year-old tradition, rather than making it work — in the interest of what is best for the sport — should be embarrassing for those making that decision."

Soon after the decision was announced in late January, Connolly created the Web site savethefamegame.com. He's also sent letters to baseball commissioner Bud Selig, players' union leader Donald Fehr, a select group of major leaguers from all 30 clubs, and the owners and front office leaders.

Connolly said he's received a supportive response from Phillies chairman Bill Giles and a letter from Dave Dombrowski, president, general manager and CEO of the Detroit Tigers. Dombrowski's June 4 letter on Tigers letterhead said the players association "negotiated this change in (the) recent basic agreement settlement."

There have been no replies from any players, nor has Connolly received word from any Hall of Famers. At least one has voiced an opinion, though. After initially shrugging at the news — "I'm not surprised. It's just an exhibition game to raise funds for the Hall of Fame," 89-year-old Bob Feller said — he gave it more thought.

"It's all money, isn't it? I think it's a shame," said Feller, a Hall of Famer since 1962. "It's an insult to the Hall of Fame and to the Hall of Famers. I just think that they should do it for the fans. What do they do for the fans, anyway? Take their money? Raise their prices?"

Naturally, some politicians have entered the fray.

"At a time when the reputation of professional baseball is in jeopardy due to the negative attention surrounding recent scandals, the last thing Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association should be doing is ending a tradition that everyone can rally around," New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey wrote in a letter to Selig and Fehr. "Surely, at a time when Major League Baseball is taking in record profits and has the ability to charter private jets for teams, it isn't asking a great deal to keep this important tradition alive."

Selig responded in a letter to Hinchey, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and other members of Congress who have objected to the cancellation of the game.

In it he said: "As you know, our teams play 162 games in 180 days. With interleague play and interdivision matchups, finding two teams that could be scheduled into Cooperstown during an off day has become exceedingly difficult."

How times have changed.

In 1941, National League president Ford Frick instructed the Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Indians to play in a driving rain so the thousands of fans in attendance would not go home disappointed. And two years later, because of the strain World War II was exerting on the nation's gasoline reserves, the Brooklyn Dodgers rode into Cooperstown on horseback.

From its inception in 1940 until 1978, the Hall of Fame Game was played the same day as the annual induction ceremony. The game was switched in 1979 to the day after the induction ceremony and remained a big hit, usually selling out within hours. Six years ago, it was moved to mid-June because of scheduling problems.

Connolly scoffs at that notion.

"It's not about the schedule," he said. "Major League Baseball can schedule games in Japan, China, Mexico, Memphis, Orlando and Puerto Rico, so isn't it likely that they could find a way to hold a game in Cooperstown? I think if this game were anywhere near a major league city or if the Hall of Fame were in a major league city they would find a way without even thinking twice about it."

Though there is considerable doubt as to where the game was first played, baseball lore credits Abner Doubleday with inventing it, supposedly in Elihu Phinney's cow pasture in Cooperstown in 1839.

When the game was moved to mid-June, Hall of Fame officials added a parade down Main Street of this one-stoplight village as part of the festivities. The school district also developed a tradition of its own, saving the last snow day of winter so all the kids could have the day off.

"The game, for a small community, was just grand," said John Bullis, who heads the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce.

As was the home run derby, which had become a spectacle of its own in the cozy confines of Doubleday Field. The left field line is 296 feet, the right field line is 312, the gaps anywhere from 336 to 350. Easy pickings for even the minor leaguers who increasingly have become the game's mainstays in recent years while the stars rest.

Connolly, who works for a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., is making the trek home on Monday. He'll march in the parade trying to spread his message, then watch the game from the backyard of his mother-in-law's house just beyond the fence in right-center. And he plans to display a 4-by-16-foot banner with his Web address on the front and a message on the back asking for a moment of silence throughout the bottom half of the third inning.

"It's an appropriate way to sort of demonstrate that the decisions these people are making effectively silence or turn off fans from the game," Connolly said. "The idea that 10,000 people could be sitting in silence while a major league baseball game is going on would be a powerful thing. I feel if we can get the word out, eventually there's going to be support that can't be ignored."