Minnie Miñoso’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday culminates an extended and sophisticated journey to Cooperstown, N.Y., that few imagined would finish this manner.
The former Chicago White Sox legend — who will be a part of David Ortiz, Jim Kaat, Tony Oliva, Buck O’Neil, Gil Hodges and Bud Fowler within the 2022 class — repeatedly was deemed unworthy from his unique retirement in 1964 to his dying at 90 in 2015.
Miñoso was an afterthought within the minds of the Baseball Writers Association of America, which initially stored him out of the Hall throughout his years of eligibility. Early veterans committees shot him down as a viable candidate, as did a revamped veterans committee in 2003 consisting of Hall of Famers and people who had earned plaques in Cooperstown via broadcasting or writing concerning the recreation. (The Hall disbanded the 15-member veterans panel after Bill Mazeroski’s election in 2001, feeling it was too political.)
But Miñoso, generally known as the “Cuban Comet,” nonetheless fared poorly along with his friends, ending with solely 16 votes by the 85-man committee, which was tied for tenth place and effectively under the 61 votes essential for election. His candidacy barely even registered with the Chicago media, who centered on the Hall of Fame quest of former Cubs third baseman Ron Santo, who fell 15 votes shy in 2003.
When MLB created the Committee on African-American Baseball in 2006 to elect Negro Leagues greats who had been ignored, Miñoso felt he had a sensible likelihood. But his three-year stint within the Negro Leagues was thought of too transient, even mixed along with his major-league profession, so Miñoso was not one of many 18 Black gamers elected.
By 2011, he appeared resigned to his destiny.
“I’ve kept it inside me,” Miñoso informed the Tribune that April at U.S. Cellular Field. “It will go with me when I die. … I’m mad because it seems a lot of people ignore a lot of things I do in baseball.”
But within the fall, Miñoso once more discovered himself listed on the 10-person poll for consideration by the Hall’s Golden Era Committee that changed the veterans committee. During discussions for all of the candidates by the 16-member group, supporters pointed to his late-arriving entry into the main leagues and the bias he confronted throughout his profession as a Black Latino from Cuba.
Miñoso was once more denied, receiving 9 of 16 votes. Santo, who died the earlier December, lastly bought in. Hall of Famer Juan Marichal, a member of the committee, stated Miñoso was “responsible for so many careers of the (Latino) players that came behind him, including myself,” suggesting his standing as a pioneer for Latino gamers had been ignored. Tribune baseball author Phil Rogers known as it “the Hall’s most shameful exclusion.”
Miñoso’s last heartbreak got here in 2014, when he earned solely eight of the 12 votes wanted by a 15-member committee, which wound up electing nobody.
“I don’t know what player, out of the era of the ‘50s and ‘60s, would be more deserving than Minnie,” Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf stated after the announcement.
Miñoso died the following 12 months. After the 2020 Golden Era poll was postponed a 12 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Miñoso gained six votes on the 2021 poll, ending with 14 votes from the 16-member committee that included former Commissioner Bud Selig, an influential supporter.
They say life is all about timing, and Miñoso’s time lastly arrived. It was too late for him to revel within the celebration, however at the very least he made it. Though baseball writers and voting Hall of Fame gamers let him down, ultimately Miñoso was aided by MLB’s reckoning with it shameful, racist previous, which led to the Negro Leagues formally being acknowledged as a significant league in 2020.
The addition of Miñoso’s Negro League stats pushed him over the two,000-hit mark (2,113), whereas his profession OPS of .848 was forward of Hall of Fame outfielders together with Reggie Jackson (.846), Carl Yastrzemski (.842) and Kirby Puckett (.837). No one handed it to Miñoso. He earned his method in.
The curious factor concerning the Baseball Hall of Fame is hardly anybody remembers the struggles many members had in getting there. Once they’re in, they’re all a part of the identical choose group of baseball elites, and their plaques don’t notice the years of heartache and ready.
Miñoso’s love for the sport finally may need labored towards him. He by no means wished to cease hitting. To some, his title was synonymous with legendary stuntman Bill Veeck, the maverick Sox proprietor who introduced him out of retirement to play in 1976 after which once more in 1980 to tie a report of enjoying in 5 many years.
Veeck was lengthy passed by 1990 when Reinsdorf was keen to offer Miñoso an at-bat in the course of the last days of previous Comiskey Park, which might have made it six many years as an alternative of 5.
“I promised him this years ago,” Reinsdorf informed Tribune baseball author Jerome Holtzman earlier than the 1990 season. “We have to be sure this isn’t a farce. I haven’t thought the whole thing through, but we don’t want him to embarrass himself or baseball.”
By summer time the Sox have been in a heated race with the Oakland A’s within the American League West. The thought of giving a 67-year-old Miñoso an at-bat down the stretch was debated, and Miñoso was informed he may need to go a medical examination.
“That medical talk is bull,” he stated. “‘I can play. I feel every day is my birthday. Each day I feel I’m reborn. I’d be honored to play.”
But Commissioner Fay Vincent put a halt to the plan, citing “the best interests of the game.” Many sprung to Miñoso’s protection.
“We know we can’t live forever, we know our heroes can’t be heroic forever, but the dream makes the reality endurable,” Tribune columnist Bernie Lincicome wrote. “Baseball ought to indulge dreams. That’s why it exists.”
On a aspect notice, MLB in 2012 allowed former Cubs participant Adam Greenberg to signal a one-day contract with the Miami Marlins as a publicity stunt, seven years after his solely profession at-bat ended with him getting beaned on the primary pitch he noticed. No one appeared to thoughts the stunt, which went off as deliberate.
The house owners finally fired Vincent, and in September 1993 the Sox once more introduced a 70-year-old Miñoso would play an inning and lead off towards the Seattle Mariners. But the Sox have been on their method to the playoffs, and ace Jack McDowell led a gamers revolt, which compelled basic supervisor Ron Schueler to cancel the plan, citing “several players (who) have voiced their displeasure.”
“The team has other things to focus on that are far more important,” Schueler stated. “After talking with Minnie, we have decided that he will not play.”
Miñoso understood. He wished solely to make followers comfortable and, after all, he cherished to hit.
Before a 1991 old-timers recreation at Wrigley Field, after Miñoso completed smoking line drives within the batting cage, I requested him if he ever would surrender hitting.
“It’s my life,” he replied.
It was a life effectively lived.
And on Sunday, after almost six many years of being rejected, Miñoso lastly will get his day within the solar.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com