In Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner, the Baseball Writers Affiliation delivered fairly an eclectic trifecta to Cooperstown on Tuesday.
The primary Japanese participant ever elected to the Corridor of Fame, a reformed alcoholic, and an under-sized, under-rated strikeout artist from rural Virginia who lastly made it in his final yr on the poll.
Undoubtedly, the principle attraction at Cooperstown subsequent July might be Ichiro, who missed by one vote of equaling Mariano Rivera’s perfection in 2017. He’s anticipated to attract report crowds from Japan, the place he hit .353 in 9 seasons earlier than defecting to the U.S. with the Mariners in 2001 — and occurring to hit .311 with 3,089 hits and 509 stolen bases for 19 seasons. In 2001 he grew to become solely the second participant in historical past to win Rookie of the Yr and MVP honors in the identical season and three years later he broke Corridor-of-Famer George Sisler’s long-standing all-time one-season hits report of 257 with 262.
However there additionally figures to be a goodly variety of Yankee and Met followers making the trek to upstate New York to pay homage to Sabathia, the bulwark pitching ace of the Yankees’ final World Collection group in 2009 with essentially the most strikeouts (3,089) of any lefthander in historical past who was additionally on the poll for the primary time and bought 86.8% — and the likewise widespread Wagner, a two-time All-Star with the Mets whose 413 saves rank sixth all-time, who made it in with 82.5%. As well as, his a 2.31 ERA is the second lowest within the fashionable period for pitchers with 900 or extra innings, behind solely Rivera’s 2.21.
“Mariano screwed it up for everybody,” Wagner joked final yr when he missed election by 5 votes with 73.8%.
Full disclosure right here: This was the primary time I voted for Wagner, the 5-10 lefty and pleasure of Marion, VA, and really probably it was as a result of I used to be spoiled masking Rivera’s complete monumental profession of sheer dominance. I’ve all the time been a “small ballot” voter, hardly ever voting for greater than three candidates, and with Wagner, I may by no means appear to get previous his postseason report — a ten.03 ERA, with 21 hits and three homers in 11/2 innings for 4 completely different groups.
However because the years went on and Wagner started edging nearer to the mandatory 75% for election, nuggets of his dominance — my No. 1 standards — started to emerge. He averaged 11.9 strikeouts per 9 innings and held opponents to a .187 common for his profession and each are all time data. And although this isn’t a part of Wagner’s statistical report (however is a part of the Corridor-of-Fame’s “sportsmanship/integrity” clause), he has all the time been a category act, all the time at his locker to face the media in good instances and dangerous, and that all the time counted huge with me.
In distinction to Wagner, there was by no means any doubt about Ichiro in his first yr on the poll, solely whether or not he can be the second participant ever to be elected unanimously. “He should have been,” mentioned Lou Piniella, Ichiro’s first supervisor with the Mariners. “He was a totally different player from the other Hall-of-Famers [Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez] I had in Seattle in that he was a leadoff hitter. But he was the best leadoff hitter of his time, and a great teammate.
“My only concern about him that first spring training with us was that he kept taking every pitch the opposite way and I was afraid he couldn’t hit a major league fastball. So I told his interpreter to tell him I’d like to see him pull the ball. He nodded and smiled. When he came to bat two innings later he pulled the first pitch over the right-center field scoreboard and as he came into the dugout he said: ‘That okay, Skipper?’ I said: ‘Yeah. That’s okay. From now on do whatever you want!’ The fact was, he could hit a ball as far as anyone but he believed his job was to get on base and create runs and nobody did that better.”
Sabathia was not the clear “no-brainer” first-ballot candidate as Ichiro, if solely as a result of, after being a dominant No. 1 pitcher for 12 years, profitable 15 or extra video games eight instances and a Cy Younger Award with the Indians in 2007, he struggled his final six years after revealing on the eve of the Yankees’ postseason in 2015 he was battling alcoholism. A main theme in his 2021 autobiography “Til the End” was that his biggest victory was overcoming alcoholism.
For Carlos Beltran, who completed fourth within the balloting, the comfort is that the Baseball Writers seem like forgiving him for his half within the 2017 Astros dishonest scandal, rising his proportion from 51.1% final yr to the doorstep at 70.3%. With no sure-shot candidates approaching the poll, he’ll virtually certainly be elected subsequent yr.
