COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Some 230 miles from Fenway, here in the Cradle of Baseball, there is much talk about the Red Sox.

Red Sox Hall of Famers Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice, and Dennis Eckersley are here. They can talk about 1978 when the Red Sox had a 14-game lead, won 99 games, but did not make it to the postseason because they lost a one-game playoff (regular-season game 163) to the Yankees.

Hall of Famer Wade Boggs is here. He can talk about 1986 when the Sox took over first place in May, never looked back, pulled off one of the great comebacks in playoff history against the Angels, then broke New England’s heart in the Bill Buckner World Series against the Mets.

Pedro, of course, is here, too. And he can talk about 2003 when he took a 5-2 lead into the eighth inning in Game 7 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium.

“That one hurt the most,’’ Pedro said Friday at the Baseball Hall of Fame. “It was the only time in baseball I wanted to cry.’’

Like Fisk, Eck, Boggs, and just about everyone else in Cooperstown, Pedro is bullish on the 2018 Sox, who are demolishing the American League.

“They’re really good,’’ Martinez said. “I mean it. Everyone can see the wins, but I’ve looked at that lineup and matched it up against our lineup when we won in 2004 and you know what? These guys are just a little bit better. It’s going to come down to the pitching and how those big guys do in the big moment. We had those guys. Schill had done it. I had done it. And D-Lowe — he was just crazy enough not to worry in the big moments. He just wanted to throw the ball.’’

Random notes from Cooperstown . . .

■ Chipper Jones leads the six-player Hall of Fame induction class of 2018 and he’s nervous because his wife is due to have a baby boy on Monday. The Joneses already have named the child, “Cooper.’’ Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson, a Newton native, says, “I’ve got several different lineups for our speeches. Chipper could be leading off or he could be batting sixth.’’

■ Twins manager Paul Molitor left his team in Boston to be in Cooperstown for the induction of fellow St. Paul native, Jack Morris. It’s rare for an active manager to make it to Cooperstown for the annual July induction weekend. Frank Robinson took time out from skippering the Indians when he was inducted in 1982. Yogi Berra (1972 Mets), Rogers Hornsby (1953 Reds) and Connie Mack (1950 A’s), also came to Cooperstown for inductions while they were managing ballclubs. Giants manager Bruce Bochy also is expected in Cooperstown Sunday.

■ Including Dave Winfield, St. Paul has produced three Hall of Famers, but the Twin Cities still trail Mobile, Ala., which lays claim to Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey, Billy Williams, Satchel Paige, and Ozzie Smith (who grew up in LA, but was born in Mobile).

■ The Orioles have enlisted the services of Eddie Murray and Brooks Robinson in an effort to put the pieces back together in Baltimore. Murray, newly loquacious in his expanded role, has a lot of thoughts about why so many of today’s hitters are striking out so much. “They’re not thinking enough,’’ said Murray. “We all have this data and they can go back and look at what a pitcher got them out on on a specific count. They need to use the information and think up there.’’ Chipper Jones, a switch-hitting machine like Murray, never fanned 100 times in a season.

■ Roland Hemond, a native of Central Falls, R.I., who started his career in baseball with the Boston Braves in 1951, is in Cooperstown this weekend. Now 88, Hemond launched the careers of both Tony La Russa and Dave Dombrowski.

■ The Hall is peppered with living players who spent a (in some cases a very small) portion of their careers with Red Sox. This list includes Luis Aparicio, Juan Marichal, Tony Perez, Orlando Cepeda, Rickey Henderson, Fergie Jenkins, and John Smoltz. Rollie Fingers spent one day in a Red Sox uniform in 1976 before a Charlie Finley fire sale was voided by commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Fingers never played in a game for Boston.

■ Among ink-stained wretches in Cooperstown there’s much dismay about the state of the New York Daily News. Once a titan of baseball coverage in New York, the News has been slaughtered and did not have a single reporter at Yankees or Mets games last Tuesday.

■ Mets righty Zach Wheeler would have been a better solution than Nathan Eovaldi. And we assume the Red Sox were joking when they said Eovaldi was a better fit for them than Zach Britton.

■ Seeing Aaron Judge sustain a chip fracture of his right wrist reminded me of rookie Jim Rice breaking a bone in his hand when he was hit by a Vern Ruhle pitch in September of 1975. The cracked bone put Rice on the shelf for the entire postseason.

■ Jim Kaat (283 wins, 16 Gold Gloves) asked me, “What’s the real story with Malcolm Butler?’’

■ Baseball guy and a literary savant Clark Booth died Friday at the age of 79. One of the finest men ever to walk the face of the earth, it was Booth who elegantly and playfully suggested the Sox and Reds call off Game 7 of the 1975 World Series after Carlton Fisk’s crescendo moment at the end of Game 6.

“They should spread tables and checkered tablecloths across the outfield,’’ said Booth. “And just have a picnic, a feast to a glorious World Series and toast one another until dawn.’’

Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @dan_shaughnessy.