Griffey Jr., Piazza Headed For Baseball’s Hall Of Fame

Before his election, Piazza was the only eligible player who had a career.

A prodigious slugger on both coasts, Piazza belted most of his 427 home runs for the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets during a prolific, 16-year career that almost never took flight.

One was the first overall pick who fulfilled every bit of his potential. During a career that ended with San Diego in 2006 and Oakland the following year, he hit better than.

In some ways they will enter the shrine in Cooperstown, N.Y., together as polar opposites.

Griffey admitted several times Wednesday night to being superstitious.

Griffey set a record by being named on 99.34 percent of the 440 ballots submitted by voting members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Tom Seaver received 98.4 percent in 1992, the second most amount.

So, Ken Griffey, would you vote for them?

“I haven’t really thought about the hat backwards”, Griffey later said on a conference call.

“Tremendous honor”, Piazza said. “It’s just an honor to be elected and to have the highest percentage ever is definitely a shock”. However, 2016 will be his 10th year on the ballot, and the Hall of Fame not so long ago lowered the maximum time on the ballot from 15 years to 10 years.

The Baseball Hall of Fame will have two new members this July.

“I still remember the feeling like it was yesterday”, John Franco told me a few years ago. “Now the first time I’ll go through the door, I will be”.

The other selection was catcher Mike Piazza (pee-AHT’-zah), who got in with 83 percent of the vote.

It’s a day for celebration in Flushing, yet Mike Piazza’s Hall of Fame election wound up being something so much more. Griffey, Jr. and Piazza are quite the contrast. “You want to play fair”. The Reds are also represented by 12 managers and executives.

“It’s the first time I ever heard me being in the batter’s box and hearing somebody holler out ‘Let’s go dad!’ and he’s the hitter behind me”, Griffey said. “I was already popular”. “For me, I am really encouraged, and thankful, in the increase of votes”.

With his backward baseball cap and million-watt smile, Griffey’s popularity transcended baseball in the 1990s to include video games and even a chocolate bar.

Griffey believes drug-testing, which began in baseball in 2003, should eliminate the possibility of stigma for the current generation of players.

In 1987, Ken Griffey Jr. was selected by the Seattle Mariners with the No. 1 overall pick. “You can say those things”.

Piazza, who provided one of baseball’s most iconic moments when he inspired New Yorkers with a game-ending home run just days after the September 11 attacks, spoke glowingly of the way Mets fans accepted him after the whirlwind series of deals that sent him out of contract acrimony with the Dodgers and a brief stop with the Florida Marlins in 1996. The emotions are very strong. “This was a game he knew and he loved and he enjoyed playing”. “It had a certain grittiness and attitude, and I wanted to roll up my sleeves and dive in”.

During his heyday in the mid-to-late ’90s, Griffey, teammate Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds were regarded as the premier position players of their era.

While our collective obsession with the illegal performance-enhancing drug guessing game will take longer to shake off, Piazza’s triumph marks progress.

“Fans understand there’s no flawless institution”, he said. It’s a human condition. “They’ve addressed the issue”. A minimum of 75 percent is needed. Bagwell will surely get in 2017 as will Tim Raines who shot up from 55% to 69.8%. He garnered 62.2 percent in 2014 and 69.9 percent previous year. If both continue to experience jumps of 10 percent each year, they will undoubtedly gain election before their 10 years on the ballot is up.