LEGENDS. Six were elected to the Hall of Fame / @ baseballhall
Tony Oliva and Orestes “Minnie” Miñoso are now immortal. This Sunday, the voting of the Early Baseball Committee and the Golden Era Committee honored the Cubans, along with four other players, who will be inducted into the Cooperstown Hall of Fame.
Bud Fowler, Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat and Buck O’Neil make up the group of now immortals in the North American ball, who managed to arrive by committee, a different route than usual and that is generated by the vote of the chroniclers.
The context: With the appointment of Oliva and Miñoso, Cuba celebrates six figures who raise the island’s flag in the Hall of Fame. Atanacio “Tany” Pérez, Martín Dihigo, José Mendéz and Cristóbal Torriente are the other four who are waiting for the recent immortals.
- Miñoso, who passed away in 2015, was present at seven All-Star Games. From the batter’s box, the Antillean hit 186 home runs and stole 205 bases. He is considered one of the first Latino to stand out in MLB.
- Of his 17 seasons in the big top, 12 he played in the uniform of the Chicago White Sox. To his credit he had three Golden Gloves.
- Oliva, who shone between the 1960s and 1970s, earned three batting titles. He was also named the American League Rookie of the Year in the 1964 campaign.
- He was called up to eight All-Star Games and held the AL hitter lead five times.
What do they say?: “To be able to receive that call … you know, I am 83 years old,” Oliva said in an interview for MLB Network, in which he shared his feeling when he learned that he was going to the Hall of Fame. “Being alive and being able to greet people and say thank you, that means a lot to me.”
And now that…?: It will be on July 24 of next year when the event is held to exalt the aforementioned figures, whose plaque will now be part of the temple of the immortals of the Major League system.
Main source of the news: The majors
