Baseball Inductees Starred Differently

Aug. 4, 2001 -- If you just saw them walking down the street and you didn't know them from three IRS agents, what would you think?

Would you possibly think that these three men could be about to be enshrined in the same Hall of Fame, in the same sport, on the same day?

How could Dave Winfield, a human skyscraper, and Kirby Puckett, a human bowling ball, have ever wound up playing the same game — let alone been so consummately talented at every aspect of it?

How could Bill Mazeroski — just an ordinary-looking, laid-back country guy from the outskirts of Stuebenville, Ohio — have become arguably the greatest defensive player at any position in that game?

For those who don't understand baseball, no explanation of that is possible. For those who do, no explanation is necessary.

‘No Crying in Baseball’

The roads and the walkways of baseball lead everywhere. And Today, they led these three men — Winfield, Puckett, Mazeroski — to the same podium in the same room in the magical village of Cooperstown, N.Y., a day before they will all be inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame.

"Winny's gonna cry," Puckett predicted, jabbing his buddy Winfield in the side. "I'll tell you that right now. And Maz — he's gonna cry, too.

"Me," Puckett laughed, "I'm gonna try not to cry. I never cried before. Even when I retired, I didn't cry. Something really bad has to happen for me to cry. But Winny's gonna cry. I'd bet on that."

Winfield shook his head.

"There's no crying in baseball," Winfield said, chuckling mightily.

"There might be tomorrow," Puckett said.

Hitting Machine

The funny thing is, if anyone deserves to cry on induction day, it is Puckett. After all, who knows where he and his career were headed if nature's sight burglars hadn't stolen the vision from his right eye on that sad and mysterious morning in March, 1996?

Would he have kept on churning out those 200-hit, 30-homer, Gold Glove seasons for three more years? Five more years? Ten more years?

That is a question that seems poignant, even tragic, to the rest of us. But the great Kirby just keeps on smiling.

"I didn't get to go out on my own terms, like Winny and Maz," Puckett said. "But I was going to retire in four more years, anyhow. I had my life set. I was going to get 3,000 hits and retire. But it didn't work out that way. I crammed everything into 12 years. But I think I did more in 12 years than a lot of guys do in their whole lives."

Yeah, he crammed 2,304 hits, eight .300 seasons, six gold gloves, a batting title, an RBI title, an All-Star Game MVP award, a League Championship Series MVP award and one of the greatest all-around World Series games by any player anywhere (Game 6, '91) into those 12 seasons. Still, it wasn't enough for us. But it was enough for him.

"When you're a kid 5 years old, you have this dream," Puckett said, "I got to live that dream for 12 years. Then I got to come to this place to finish it off. What else is there?"

Ten seconds with Puckett, and any sorrow you feel over his unfortunate fate melts into the joy of being around him.

Defensive Wizardry; Dramatic Homer

And then there is Mazeroski, a man who waited almost 30 years for this day.

He turned the last of his 1,706 double plays in 1972. The defining moment of his career — Game 7, 1960 — is now more than four decades old. He agonized through 15 unsuccessful elections by the baseball writers, then another half-dozen by the Veterans Committee until that committee finally elected him last March.

"I don't know what I'm going to do next March," he joked Saturday. "I've been asked that question so many times: 'Is this the year? Is this the year? Don't you think this is the year?' I'm going to miss all that next year."

Yeah. Sure he will. He'll miss it about as much as he misses trying to hit Koufax's curveball.

In other sports, they let the great defenders into their Halls of Fame with barely a second thought. How many defensive linemen and linebackers are in the football Hall of Fame? How many goalies and defensemen are in the hockey Hall of Fame?

Yet Mazeroski, who has been ranked by Total Baseball as the top defensive player in history at any position in his sport, almost never made it at all.

With Ozzie Smith surely bound for the Hall next summer based largely on his own defensive wizardry, Mazeroski said Saturday he sees a day nearing when defense isn't overlooked.

But he's smart enough to recognize that to the average American sports fan, to the guy who only casually knows his name, it isn't those quick pivots at second base that are stuck in most people's memory banks.

"I'm in the Hall of Fame for defense," Mazeroski said. "But if I mention my name, what people say is: 'You're the guy who hit that home run against the New York Yankees.' They don't even know I played second base."

This may be a year when Bobby Thomson's home run off Ralph Branca is being celebrated as the greatest home run in baseball history. But it is the guy who hit the only walkoff, Series-deciding Game 7 home run ever, Mazeroski, who is riding his historic home run into Cooperstown.

So no wonder that when he was asked Saturday to recall the big "highlights" of his career, Mazeroski chuckled softly.

"I think I only had one highlight," he said. "Didn't I? I'd say 1960 was a pretty good highlight. I'm pretty happy with that. …

"And who would have thought that today, 41 years later, somebody would still be talking about that home run?"

Ask that question of those who don't get why we care about these games, and you might find someone equally astonished by that fact. But to those of us who understand that the best part of being a fan is that these legendary games get stuck in your head forever, it makes perfect sense.

Power and Longevity

What doesn't make perfect sense is that Winfield, one of the greatest athletes of all time, played 22 seasons and still lugs no one signature moment to Cooperstown with him.

Asked Saturday if he had one memorable moment that is frozen in his own memory, Winfield looked as stumped as if he'd been asked to name all 50 state capitols.

His mind raced through a series of funny moments, stupid moments, George Steinbrenner moments, until it finally stopped fast-forwarding at Game 6 of the 1992 World Series. That was the night when his game-winning 11th-inning double off Charlie Leibrandt won the Series for the '92 Blue Jays — and conked that "Mr. May" label of Winfield's upside the head.

"It took me 20 years to get to that Series and hit that double," he said. "And that will always be implanted in my mind."

Despite those 3,110 hits, those 465 homers, those seven Gold Gloves, those 12 straight All-Star Games he played in, Winfield needed that moment to erase the stain of a 1-for-22 catastrophe in his first World Series (in 1981). One year later, he collected his 3,000th hit. And now, on Sunday, he can walk onto that stage in Cooperstown to tie the final ribbon around his memorable career.

But Saturday, he and Puckett came right off the golf course for one final pre-induction press conference. The first question they were asked was to name the one trait in the other guy they wished they had.

"I want to be 6-6 like Winny," the 5-foot-9 Puckett replied, instantly. "I want to be 6-6 and big, and every time I walk in a room, people can look up at me instead of looking down."

Then he paused, looked over at Winfield and waited to hear what trait of his Winfield coveted most. Except that Winfield was clearly stumped again, searching silently for 15 confused seconds for a decent answer.

"See," Puckett laughed. "He don't want none of mine."

Perfect.

Kirby Puckett. Dave Winfield. Bill Mazeroski.

So little in common in so many ways. But so much in common in the only way that will matter Sunday in the rolling hills of Cooperstown.

The doors of the Hall of Fame are opening one more time Sunday. And they get to walk in together. For the rest of their lives.