The Judge RAVES!

Date: 24/01/24

Cooperstown Bound!

Remember what I said here?

(No reason why you should, I suppose. Jeez, was that really over five years ago?)

Well, he made it! Last night, Joe Mauer was elected to the Major League Baseball Hall Of Fame.

Admittedly, the vote was a bit close: you need to be on 75% of the ballots cast by the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) to get in at all, and Joe got in with 76.1%. But he's there, and on the first attempt as well (a player has to be retired for five years before becoming eligible); only the élite of the élite do that.

The honour (sorry, I mean 'honor') is - as I pointed out in my earlier piece - not just about the numbers (baseball is the most stat-obsessed of the world's sports), but about the way the player played the game, his influence on those around him, and the example he set. On those metrics, he belongs in Cooperstown, and next July will see a small part of upstate New York become forever a part of the North Star State.

Congratulations, Joe!

File under: Sport, Yay!