2022 Baseball Hall of Fame Inductees

After sharing the initial burst of joy with their friends and family, a newly-elected Baseball Hall of Famer might be forgiven for asking, “Where is the Baseball Hall of Fame?” The upstate New York village of Cooperstown isn’t an easy place to get to, but every summer for one weekend, it’s the center of the baseball universe as another class of inductees takes its spot among the game’s legends. The following seven players are those who comprised the 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame class.

It took more than 100 years following his death for Bud Fowler, the first known Black professional baseball player, to find his way to Cooperstown as part of the 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame class. That’s not to say he would’ve needed directions to the induction ceremony. Born in 1858, Fowler spent his teenage years in Cooperstown before making his professional debut in 1878, playing for the Lynn, Massachusetts club of the International Association. Fowler’s career was one of a baseball nomad, playing in more than a dozen minor leagues across three decades.

One of his more notable stops was when he helped form the Page Fence Giants, a Michigan-based club of Black players that began play in 1895. With Fowler at second base, the team played in 112 towns that first season, dominating their competition to the tune of a 118-36-2 record. After facing the Cincinnati Reds twice that season, the Cincinnati Enquirer described Fowler as “as spry and as fast as any man on the field.”

Fowler finished his career with a .308 average in 465 minor league games with 455 runs scored and 190 stolen bases. He died in 1913 at the age of 54.

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Long known as the player to have received the most Hall of Fame votes without getting in, Gil Hodges shed that mantle when the Veterans Committee elected him to the Baseball Hall of Fame 2022 class. A native of southwestern Indiana, Hodges spent all but two of his 18 years in the Major Leagues with the Dodgers, making the move west from Brooklyn to Los Angeles with the club in 1958. 

Hodges was an eight-time National League All-Star, making the team every year from 1949 to 1955 and again in 1957. Long considered an elite defender at first base, he won three straight Gold Gloves from 1957 to 1959, the first three seasons they were awarded when there were no separate awards for the National and American Leagues. He was part of seven National League pennant winners as a player, helping bring home two World Series titles, one to Brooklyn in 1955 and the other to L.A. in 1959.

One of Hodges’ most notable achievements came after his playing career. Prior to the 1968 season, Hodges left his job as manager of the Washington Senators to join the New York Mets, the team with which he’d finished his playing career. After finishing ninth in the 10-team National League in 1968, Hodges led the club to a 100-62 season in 1969. The Miracles Mets swept the NLCS and dropped only one game in the World Series on the way to the first World Series championship in franchise history.

Hodges’ managerial career came to a sudden and tragic end just before the start of the 1972 season, when he died of a heart attack shortly after a round of golf with a group of Mets coaches. Hodges was just 47.

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Though he may be most familiar to a generation of fans as a broadcaster, Jim Kaat won 283 games over 25 seasons. After many years of falling short of election, the Veterans Committee deemed Kaat worthy of joining the list of players in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Though Kaat was named an All-Star only three times, he had eight seasons of three or more wins above replacement. One of those came in 1966 with the Minnesota Twins when he led the American league in innings pitched (304.2), wins (25), and complete games (19).

Kaat is perhaps best known for his fielding prowess. The lefty won 16 Gold Glove awards, a record for pitchers until it was broken by Greg Maddux in 2007. Kaat, however, won his awards consecutively, a record he still shares.

The Michigan native ended his career with the St. Louis Cardinals, where he won his first and only World Series ring at the age of 43. Kaat pitched out of the bullpen for the 1982 club that defeated the Milwaukee Brewers in seven games.

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Cuban-born Minnie Miñoso, a seven-time MLB All-Star and two-time Negro National League All-Star, had his name etched into the Baseball Hall of Fame list of elected players when the Veterans Committee chose him as part of the 2022 class.

Not only did Miñoso stand out as a young player, batting .313/.364/.479 across his three Negro National League seasons before hitting .326 with a league-high 14 triples and 31 stolen bases as an MLB rookie in 1951 mostly with the Chicago White Sox, but he was able to stay productive into the latter part of his career as well. He batted .307 over a seven-season span covering ages 30 to 36, starting with the White Sox before being traded to Cleveland and then back to Chicago.

From a wins above replacement standpoint, Miñoso’s best season came in 1954 with the White Sox. His 18 triples led MLB, and his 304 total bases paced the American League. He was named an All-Star en route to a .320/.411/.535 batting line and an AL-high 8.2 wins above replacement. It marked one of four seasons where he finished exactly fourth in MVP voting, as high as he would get in his career.

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Though a talented player, a large part of Buck O’Neil’s candidacy rests on his status as one of the most charismatic and tireless spokespeople the baseball world has ever known. His service to the game, which spanned eight decades, was formally recognized by the Baseball Hall of Fame with his 2022 induction.

O’Neil made his debut in the Negro American League in 1937 at age 25 with the Memphis Red Sox. He joined the Kansas City Monarchs the next year and remained with the club for the remainder of his career. O’Neil made two All-Star teams in 1942 and 1943 before taking two seasons off for military service. He returned in 1946 and had arguably his best season in 1947, batting .286 with an .809 OPS and a league-leading 54 runs scored.

Following his playing career, he joined the Chicago Cubs as a scout, signing stars such as Lou Brock and Oscar Gamble. O’Neil was promoted to the Cubs’ major league coaching staff in 1962, making him the first Black coach to serve on an MLB roster. He returned to full-time scouting in 1964, and moved back to Kansas City to scout for the Royals in 1988. There, he was instrumental in the growth of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. In 1994, he was featured in Ken Burns’ nine-part documentary Baseball, allowing a large audience to hear his captivating stories about Black baseball legends like Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson for the first time. 

O’Neil was still listed in the Royals media guide as a part-time scout in 2006. He died in October of that year at age 94.

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Born in Cuba in 1938, Tony Oliva would play his entire career with the Minnesota Twins. Oliva’s eight straight All-Star appearances from 1964 to 1971 and career .304 batting average were key to his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Oliva’s talent was evident from his first season as a full-time Major Leaguer in 1964, when he led the American League in batting average (.323) and doubles (43) and led all of baseball with 217 hits, including a career-high 32 home runs. Oliva received 19 of 20 first-place votes for AL Rookie of the Year and finished fourth in MVP voting. It was the first of three times Oliva would lead the American League in batting average, including a career-high .337 mark in 1971.

Oliva’s number 6 jersey is retired by the Twins, and he was part of the inaugural class of the Twins Hall of Fame in 2000. 

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While Ortiz is the third member of this Hall of Fame class to have played for the Twins, most Minnesota fans would rather not be reminded that their club let one of the most productive hitters of the last two decades walk away.

Ortiz was solid if unspectacular in the Twin Cities, posting a 108 OPS+ over six seasons, but with no clear defensive home, he was famously released following the 2002 season, paving the way for him to join the Boston Red Sox. After hitting 20 home runs his last season with the Twins, Ortiz set new careers in homers in each of his first four seasons in Boston, going from 31 home runs in 2003 to 41 in 2004 – a season we’ll come back to – to 47 in 2005 before topping out at 54 in 2006. Each of his first five seasons in Boston resulted in a top five finish in MVP voting.

What solidified Big Papi’s place in baseball lore, though, was his work in the postseason. In 2004, just his second year in New England, Ortiz batted .400/.515./.764 in 14 playoff games, including three home runs in the ALCS to capture MVP honors as the Red Sox rallied from a three games to none deficit against the Yankees. In the 2004 World Series, Ortiz again loomed large, posting a 1.083 OPS to help the Red Sox capture their first World Series since 1918. It was the first of three titles Ortiz would help the Red Sox win.

Ortiz finished his career in spectacular fashion in 2016, leading all of MLB in OPS at 1.021 at age 40. He belted 541 home runs over 20 years, 17th most in major league history. Ortiz was the only member of the 2022 Hall of Fame class to be voted in by the BBWAA, receiving 77.9% of the votes in his first time on the ballot.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 25th, 2023 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Greatest of All Time Lists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.