It’s Unanimous: Mariano Rivera Is a Hall of Famer
Source:https://tinyurl.com/y74uzfl2
By Tyler Kepner
Jan. 22, 2019
Mariano Rivera, the career saves leader whose elegant efficiency helped the
Yankees win five World Series, on Tuesday became the first player ever
elected unanimously to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Two other right-handed pitchers, Roy Halladay and Mike Mussina, also were
elected, Halladay on his first try and Mussina on his sixth. Edgar Martinez,
the longtime Seattle Mariners designated hitter, gained entry in his 10th and
final year on the ballot. Halladay, a former ace of the Toronto Blue Jays and
the Philadelphia Phillies, died in a plane crash in 2017.
Rivera was named on all 425 of the ballots cast by members of the Baseball
Writers’ Association of America, eclipsing the previous record percentage,
99.3, by Ken Griffey Jr. in 2016. Halladay and Martinez both received 85.4
percent of the votes, and Mussina — a stalwart for the Baltimore Orioles and
the Yankees — 76.7 percent. Candidates need 75 percent for election.
“After my career, I was thinking that I had a shot to be a Hall of Famer,”
Rivera said on a conference call with reporters. “But this was just beyond
my imagination. I was amazed the way all this has been, through my whole
career — and this being the pinnacle of every player that plays the game of
baseball, to be unanimous.”
The players will be inducted to the Hall of Fame on July 21 in Cooperstown,
N.Y., along with designated hitter Harold Baines and reliever Lee Smith, who
were passed over by the writers but were elected by a smaller committee last
month.
Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, whose dominant careers stretched from the
mid-1980s through 2007, were again denied entry in what was the seventh
appearance on the ballot for both players. Both have strong ties to
performance-enhancing drugs, which baseball did not test for until 2003.
Bonds got 59.1 percent of the vote, and Clemens 59.5 percent — their highest
totals yet, but still shy of 75 percent.
Rivera, 49, signed with the Yankees from Panama in 1990 for a $3,500 bonus.
He reached the majors five years later and started 10 games; the last batter
he faced as a starter was Martinez, who singled home a run in the fifth
inning against him on Sept. 5, 1995, knocking Rivera from the game and
sending him to the bullpen forever.
It was a perfect fit. Rivera thrived as a setup man in the Yankees’ 1996
championship run and took over as the team’s closer in 1997, the year he
discovered his devastating cut fastball, which broke hundreds of bats with
its hard, late movement into the hands of left-handers. Rivera remained the
closer through his retirement in 2013, compiling 652 saves with a 2.21 earned
run average, the lowest in baseball history for anyone born after 1889 (and
with a minimum of 1,000 major-league innings).
Rivera was even better across his record 96 postseason games, with a 0.70
E.R.A. and 42 saves — matching his uniform number. He was the last player to
regularly wear No. 42, which is retired across Major League Baseball for
Jackie Robinson.
Rivera was so prolific that M.L.B. named an award after him to recognize the
American League reliever of the year. Likewise, Martinez is the namesake for
the award recognizing the best designated hitter. Martinez, 56, made only 560
career starts in the field (mostly at third base) but nearly 1,400 as the
Mariners’ D.H.
Martinez won A.L. batting titles in 1992 and 1995, when he helped lead the
Mariners to their first playoff berth, securing the team’s future in
Seattle. For his career, he hit .312 with a .418 on-base percentage and a
.515 slugging percentage; only two other right-handed hitters in the game’s
history — Jimmie Foxx and Rogers Hornsby — were better in all three
categories with at least 5,000 plate appearances.
Even so, it took a while for Martinez’s case to build momentum. The writers
had never elected a player with as many games as Martinez as a D.H., a
position created in 1973 to boost offense in the American League. In 2014,
only 25.2 percent of the writers voted for Martinez.
But that support has grown steadily, and Martinez became the fifth player
elected in his final year of eligibility by the writers, joining Red Ruffing
(1967), Ralph Kiner (1975), Jim Rice (2009) and Tim Raines (2017). Martinez
made it just in time — but, he said, the time was right.
“The fact that I’m going in with Mariano, that means a lot, especially
because not only was he the top reliever in the game, but also he’s a great
human being, a great person,” said Martinez, who went 11 for 19 in his
career against Rivera. “It’s also the fact that he got 100 percent of the
votes — that makes it also extra special.”
Mussina, 50, earned 270 victories and finished with a flourish, securing his
first 20-win season on the final day of his career in 2008. His
strikeout-to-walk rate — 3.58-to-1 — is the best in history among pitchers
with at least 500 starts, and he did it all in the A.L. East, taming its
brawny hitters in small ballparks with a wide array of pitches and a knack
for improvisation.
“I just kept trying to make adjustments,” said Mussina, whose curveball was
perhaps the best of his generation. “You keep trying to do things as you get
older and certain skills start going away. You have to find other ways to do
your job and be good at it. That’s really all I was ever trying to do — to
be one of the five starters every year.”