With apologies to Tarik Skubal and the Dodgers, for my money the most eye-catching deal ahead of Monday’s trade deadline was the Red Sox acquiring Adley Rutschman in a six-player blockbuster with the Orioles. Not only did a switch-hitting All-Star catcher move from one Wild Card contender to another, but he did so within the same division — and he’s more than a rental, with one more year of arbitration eligibility before he reaches free agency. Though he’s currently on the injured list due to inflammation in his left wrist, Rutschman is reportedly nearing a rehab assignment, and once he returns, he should provide a substantial upgrade for a team whose catchers landed on my Replacement-Level Killers list a few weeks ago.
Rustchman wasn’t the only prominent catcher on the move to a contender on Monday, as the Marlins tradedLiam Hicks to the Rays, but he’s a part-time backstop whose hitting makes him a useful DH and first base option as well. While the concurrence of his being dealt illustrates that trading for a catcher on the fly in the midst of a playoff race isn’t unheard of, such moves do stand out. They’re not to be undertaken lightly because of the weighty responsibility that falls on a catcher’s shoulders in terms of quickly having to build relationships with a new pitching staff to understand repertoires, situational preferences, and interpersonal dynamics. Odds are that those newcomers are also expected to provide more offense than the catchers they replaced, because offensive slumps often spur teams to make such changes. Read the rest of this entry »
Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, and happy post-trade deadline day!
12:01
Jay Jaffe: I’m still recovering from the past few days. I stayed up until an ungodly hour writing up the Luis Castillo trade on Saturday night (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/squeezed-out-of-seattle-luis-castillo-land…) even while knowing that the Tarik Skubal trade would become the bigger news
Jeff Curry, William Purnell, Benny Sieu-Imagn Images
The Brewers pulled up short in their pursuit of Tarik Skubal, but ahead of Monday’s trade deadline, they did augment both their rotation and their bullpen. In a deal with the fading Cardinals, Milwaukee acquired 28-year-old righty starter Dustin May and 29-year-old lefty reliever JoJo Romero in exchange for a pair of outfield prospects, Alexander Frias and Josiah Ragsdale. Separately, the Brewers also traded for 31-year-old righty reliever Antonio Senzatela from the Rockies in deal for two more prospects, left-hander Mark Manfredi and shortstop Juan Martinez.
At 69-42, the Brewers entered Monday with the majors’ best record, half a game better than the Dodgers (69-43). Led by Jacob Misiorowski — whose 1.63 ERA, 2.05 FIP, 40.6% strikeout rate, and 5.0 WAR all lead the majors — their rotation has the NL’s lowest ERA (3.48) and the majors’ lowest FIP (3.54), highest strikeout rate (26.4%), and highest WAR (17.8). Misiorowski and fellow starters Brandon Sproat, Logan Henderson, Shane Drohan, and Robert Gasser are all 27 or younger, and all but Misiorowski and Sproat have thrown fewer than 100 major league innings in their careers. They’re all likely to face workload concerns at some point, so adding another starter at the deadline was a necessity even if he wasn’t someone who might give the team’s odds of winning the World Series a CC Sabathia-sized lift, as Skubal would have. Read the rest of this entry »
Even with rookie Chase DeLauter putting together a strong inaugural campaign, the Guardians have gotten less from their outfielders on the offensive side of the ball than all but a few other contenders. Ahead of Monday’s deadline, they acquired outfielder Jo Adell from the Angels in exchange for catching prospect Jacob Cozart, a move that appears to be a half-measure unless they can fit Adell into the short side of a platoon and limit his defensive exposure.
Currently 57-56, three games behind the AL Central-leading White Sox and occupying the American League’s third Wild Card spot, the Guardians have scored just 3.95 runs per game this year with a 93 wRC+, both of which rank as the league’s second-lowest marks. A lack of offense from their outfielders has contributed significantly to that problem:
Given the slew of injuries they’ve sustained within their rotation while running up the National League’s fourth-best record (63-49) — not to mention their lack of an obvious Game 1 starter — the Cubs had as much reason to trade for Tarik Skubal as any contender. Reportedly, they at least considered the possibility of dealing for the two-time Cy Young winner, yet like every World Series hopeful besides the Dodgers, they yielded to the two-time defending champions. On Sunday, however, the Cubs did land a substantial reinforcement for their rotation, acquiring 35-year-old righty Kevin Gausman from the Blue Jays in exchange for a pair of prospects, infielder Ty Southisene and outfielder Brett Bateman.
The connection between Toronto and Chicago made particular sense when I highlighted the likelihood that the Blue Jays would approach Monday’s trade deadline as sellers. Gausman, who is making $23 million in the final season of a five-year, $110 million contract, has a limited no-trade clause that allows him to block deals to eight teams, a list that reportedly includes the Brewers, Mariners, Pirates, and White Sox, all of whom are in the hunt for a playoff spot — but notably not the Cubs. As I noted in late June, at the time they traded for then-struggling Mets lefty David Peterson, five of the six pitchers forecast to throw the most innings for Chicago in our preseason Positional Power Rankings were on the injured list, and seven of the 11 pitchers who had made at least one start for the team (including openers) had landed on the IL at least once. The Cubs’ climb to the top of the NL Wild Card scrum since then justified further investment, and to their credit, less than 24 hours after Skubal was dealt, they made their move.
The trade was actually the second between the Cubs and Blue Jays on Sunday. Earlier in the day, Chicago sent 34-year-old righty Jameson Taillon, whom it had designated for assignment last Monday, to Toronto in exchange for cash or a player to be named later. More on him below, but first Gausman, who has not pitched as badly as either his 5-10 record or 4.38 ERA indicate. Though the latter mark is his highest since 2019, his 3.51 FIP is just one-tenth of a point higher than last season’s mark. His peripherals are only a hair or two worse than they were last year; the big issue is a 51-point spike in BABIP: Read the rest of this entry »
Pre-deadline trades generally follow a template, with contenders filling needs by acquiring players from teams outside of the playoff races. Not every late July or early August deal fits into that pattern, however, and Saturday night brought a less common variety of trade, one between two American League teams striving for spots in the postseason field. The Mariners, who spent most of June atop the AL West but are now trying to claw their way back to the top of the division or at worst into a Wild Card slot, sent right-hander Luis Castillo to the AL Central-leading White Sox in exchange for reliever Seranthony Domínguez, outfielder Nolan Jones, and catching prospect Boston Smith.
While the players switching teams in this deal might fill some clear needs in their new locations, none of them offers a strong guarantee. Domínguez and Castillo both have high ERAs and messy peripherals this season, and Jones has been stashed in Triple-A all year after sub-replacement level performances in 2024 and ’25. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this deal is that the White Sox are absorbing all of the money remaining on Castillo’s contract, which runs through the end of next season. The Mariners not only freed up some cash, which they may very well reallocate in the coming days, but they potentially opened up a spot in their rotation for Kade Anderson, the top pitcher on our recently updated Top 100 Prospects list, and added a prospect to their system. The ability to do so, while leaving behind an all-homegrown rotation that already includes three former first-round picks, speaks well of their vaunted pitching development program.
That said, it’s not hard to understand why Mariners fans might view this deal with some amount of cynicism and disappointment. After coming within one win of the franchise’s first trip to the World Series last October, the Mariners are 54-58, third in the AL West, three games behind the Astros (57-55), a game and a half behind the Rangers (55-56), and two games out of the third AL Wild Card spot, where seven teams — including the Tigers, who tradedTarik Skubal to the Dodgers on Saturday night — are within three and a half games. Our Playoff Odds put them at 47.7% at this writing, but if they don’t repurpose some of the savings from offloading Castillo’s salary, or come away from the deadline without something more exciting than middle relief and a prospect for their trouble, this will be remembered as a salary dump or even a white flag, not to mention an abrupt and bitter finish to a stretch in which the Mariners finally ended their postseason drought. The Mariners acquired Castillo from the Reds in a five-player blockbuster ahead of the 2022 traded deadline, and he not only helped them reach the playoffs after a 21-year absence but signed a a five-year, $108 million extension that was supposed to bring more glory than just one more trip to October. Read the rest of this entry »
John E. Sokolowski and Nick Turchiaro, Imagn Images
The Blue Jays came agonizingly close to winning the World Series last fall, but this season has been a much different story. They haven’t had a winning record since April 4, and haven’t played above .500 in any full month besides May (15-14). While they clawed their way back to .500 on May 29 (29-29) and June 22 (39-39), an 11-20 skid since then has buried them in the AL East cellar, 14 games behind the Rays. Ten American League teams either occupy a playoff spot or are within 2.5 games of one at this writing, but the Blue Jays aren’t one of them; they’re 5.5 games out of the third Wild Card spot, with playoff odds around 7%. As the August 3 trade deadline approaches, several of their players could be on the move to contenders and are worth a closer look.
So little has gone right for Toronto this year. Last season, the team had four regulars with a wRC+ of 116 or higher in George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, and Alejandro Kirk, each of whom topped 3.0 WAR, as did defensive whiz Ernie Clement. Four part-timers (Joey Loperfido, Davis Schneider, Daulton Varsho, and Tyler Heineman) also met that offensive threshold. But Bichette, Heineman, and Loperfido are now elsewhere, and the rest have been far less productive. No Blue Jay with more than 25 plate appearances has a wRC+ higher than newcomer Kazuma Okamoto’s 113, while Guerrero, Kirk, Schneider, and Varsho are all below 100. Vladito even landed on my Replacement-Level Killers list, which isn’t great news for a player whose contract runs through 2039. Okamoto is the only Blue Jays position player on pace for 3.0 WAR. Ouch.
In 2025, the Blue Jays’ offense ranked second in the AL in scoring and WAR, and third in wRC+, but this year, the team has fallen to second-to-last in scoring and WAR, and last in wRC+:
A Tale of Two Seasons: Blue Jays Offense, 2025–26
Season
R/G
HR/G
BB5
K%
AVG
OBP
SLG
wRC+
WAR
2025
4.93
1.18
8.4%
17.8%
.265
.333
.427
112
32.6
2026
3.94
0.98
7.3%
19.5%
.243
.304
.380
92
10.2
By comparison, Toronto’s run prevention has been nothing to write home about, whether we’re considering last year (4.45 runs per game, 10th in the league) or this year (4.50 runs per game, ninth). It’s easy to forget that the club’s near-miss happened despite a makeshift October rotation that included just one of the three pitchers who took at least 18 starts for the team (Kevin Gausman) and featured a rookie with three regular-season starts (Trey Yesavage), a deadline acquisition who had just returned from Tommy John surgery (Shane Bieber), and a 40-year-old veteran who missed the first three months of the season with right thumb inflammation (Max Scherzer). Read the rest of this entry »
The Yankees have been limping along since losing Aaron Judge to a stress fracture in his right first rib in early June, and they’ve been without Giancarlo Stanton for even longer due to a right calf strain. Now their lineup has suffered another major blow, as Cody Bellinger sustained a Grade 2 left hamstring strain on Saturday and landed on the injured list, a loss that ought to affect how the Yankees approach the August 3 trade deadline.
The 31-year-old Bellinger injured himself during Saturday’s game against the Phillies. While hustling his way into a double on a two-out eighth-inning hit to left-center field off Jonathan Bowlan, he appeared to slow up a bit before sliding into second. He ended up advancing no further, and when the Yankees took the field for the bottom of the eighth, Max Schuemann replaced him in left field.
Bellinger was spotted doing light agility drills on Sunday, but once it was clear to him that he wouldn’t be ready to return within a few days, he suggested an IL stint made sense because he didn’t want his teammates to play while down a man. “I just feel like I won’t be able to put on the cleats for the next four days, at least,” he said on Sunday. “So being short a man for that long, they’ll get a full roster up here and give the guys as much opportunity as they can.” Read the rest of this entry »
COOPERSTOWN, NY — “I took pride in playing second base, a position that keeps you in every play and demands toughness, but my bat was always my ticket,” said Jeff Kent during his Hall of Fame induction speech on Sunday. “I learned a long time ago from Tommy Lasorda, one of the best motivators in the game, a simple truth that I lived by my whole career: The money lies in the RBIs.”
Kent’s philosophy cut straight to the heart of a decades-long culture war within baseball, one that helps to explain why the slugging second baseman spent 10 years on the writers’ ballot without coming close to the necessary 75% needed for election, but sailed in on his first appearance on the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee last December. Hardly the darling of statheads — he ranks 22nd in JAWS at his position, for example, and only twice ranked among his league’s top 10 in Baseball Reference WAR — his prickly persona sometimes rubbed teammates and media the wrong way, but his candidacy resonated for Era Committee voters. Chockfull of executives and Hall of Fame players, the handpicked panel was more familiar with old-school measures and more inclined to reward his reputation for being free of performance-enhancing drugs, in contrast to statistically superior longtime teammate and fellow Era Committee candidate Barry Bonds, who was not elected. “Most home runs by a second baseman” played better than “most home runs all-time” thanks to the absence of a theoretical asterisk.
Along with Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones, Kent was inducted in front of an estimated crowd of 12,000 on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the Clark Sports Center. Including this year’s three inductees, a record 60 living Hall of Famers were onstage, but their audience was comparatively sparse, well short of the estimated 30,000 who showed up last year for the inductions of Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, Billy Wagner, and the late Dick Allen and Dave Parker.
All weekend long, comparisons between last year’s Induction Weekend and this one were inescapable and inevitable. Throngs of colorfully outfitted fans of the Mariners, Yankees, Astros, Phillies, and Pirates filled the streets of Cooperstown in 2025, the town was abuzz, and thanks to the timely new Yakyu Baseball exhibit — dedicated to the interchange between American and Japanese baseball — the Hall itself was packed with visitors. While a sizable contingent of Puerto Rican fans turned out for Beltrán, the streets were scarcely populated and decidedly less colorful this year. The Hall had new displays devoted to Tom Seaver memorabilia and the 50th anniversary of Rick Monday’s rescue of an American flag that was about to be set ablaze at Dodger Stadium, but this year brought no new marquee exhibit, and the Clark Sports Center field had a lot more visible, unoccupied grass.
Photo by Jay Jaffe
Chalk that up to the particularities and peculiarities of this year’s class. Few Hall of Famers in any year have the international appeal of the iconic Suzuki, who came within one vote of unanimous election and addressed the omission with grace and humor in his speech. And whether they were first-year, 10th-year, or Era Committee honorees, each of the other four Class of 2025 members took unique roads to Cooperstown. They or surviving family members told gripping stories of the obstacles they surmounted.
By contrast, this year’s class of inductees lacked such universal appeal and didn’t capture fans’ imagination in the same way — at least not enough to plan a weekend trip to Cooperstown during high season. Some of the obstacles they surmounted to get elected owed to conduct that made them polarizing figures, even if it wasn’t viewed as disqualifying. Far from immortality, Beltrán, Jones, and Kent proved themselves all too human during their playing careers. Most notably, Beltrán, a nine-time All-Star, three-time Gold Glove winner, and one of just eight players with at least 300 home runs and 300 stolen bases, was the only player identified by name in commissioner Rob Manfred’s 2019 report on the Astros’ illegal electronic sign-stealing efforts. That exposure cost Beltrán his post as the manager of the Mets before he could even fill out a lineup card. Even as the ninth-ranked center fielder in JAWS, he wasn’t elected until his fourth ballot.
Jones reached the majors as a teenager, and went on to win 10 Gold Gloves while bopping 434 home runs and helping the Braves to 10 straight playoff appearances during his career. He ranks 11th in JAWS among center fielders, but declined rapidly in his 30s due to lax conditioning; done after his age-35 season, he finished with just 1,933 hits, fewer than any other post-1960 player elected by the writers. He disappeared from the majors after being arrested on a domestic battery charge in December 2012. (He pleaded guilty to a lesser disorderly conduct charge.) He received just 7.3% of the vote in his first ballot appearance in 2018, and needed nine years to gain entry from the writers.
Kent, a five-time All-Star and former MVP, didn’t do anything that rose to the level of either classmate’s transgressions, but in March 2002 he broke a bone in his left wrist, which he initially claimed happened while washing his truck. It soon surfaced through eyewitness accounts that he had crashed doing wheelies while riding his motorcycle, in violation of his contract. As scandals go, it was comparatively quaint; the incident became the butt of jokes, but the Giants showed leniency. Kent wound up missing just four games and turned in a season to rival his MVP-winning one from two years earlier while helping the Giants reach their first World Series since 1989.
Beyond that, during his 18-year career with the Blue Jays, Mets, Cleveland, the Giants, Astros, and Dodgers, Kent could be off-putting. “I had a habit of running my mouth,” he said in his speech regarding his early years with the Mets. At the tail end of his career, he also openly criticized what he perceived to be a lack of professionalism from his young Dodgers teammates. By his own account, he had more physical confrontations with Bonds than just the famous dugout blowup in 2002, though even in the aftermath of that incident he claimed, “We have a good relationship. We have a working relationship that I think works well on the field… I think if you guys [the media] try to create a dysfunctional relationship, that’s a farce too, because that’s not true.”
In a refreshing development, the now-58-year-old Kent has not shied from publicly displaying his emotions and his gratitude in connection with his election. That willingness to break character made his the most interesting speech of Sunday. “I’ll try not to cry now, but it’s coming, no doubt,” he said as he began his speech. A minute later, he was struggling to retain his composure as he recounted the story of his father, a Southern California police officer, promising to buy him a pickup truck if he earned a college scholarship — one he still has in his garage “as a reminder that some of the simplest things can change the entire direction of your life.”
“Standing on this stage reminds me why different people come and connect to this game,” he continued. “For some it’s a shared passion, a time spent with family and friends, for others it’s an opportunity. For me it was just a simple plan of a college education and a better way of life for my family.”
During a post-induction media session, the San Francisco Standard’s John Shea identified five times since the announcement of his election at which Kent has cried publicly. Kent didn’t dispute the count or the characterization of his softer side. “I don’t think I’m mad as much as I used to be,” he said. “You know, when you play this game, you have to play with a little hatred — I use that word lightly. People call it cockiness, or arrogance, or confidence. They call it so much, but you have to play this game with a chip on the shoulder.”
“I’m not mad any more, maybe that’s why,” he continued. “I’m a deflector, and I think I’ve deflected so much that now I have to reason with it and appreciate it,” he said, referring to the publicity and plaudits coming his way since being elected, and experiencing all of that in front of his family, from whom he spared that chip-on-the-shoulder attitude.
Kent did mention Bonds once in his speech, calling him “one of the most talented players this game has ever seen” without delving into the two stars’ conflicts. Nonetheless, his frequent repetition of phrases like “playing the game the right way” couldn’t be read as anything other than veiled references to the PED-linked players who overshadowed him during his career and on ballots, particularly when he spoke of the late Ryne Sandberg, who was a vocal critic of such players and who served on the 2023 Era Committee that rejected Bonds.
Back to the RBIs. Kent singled out former Mets teammate Eddie Murray’s counseling him that the key to staying cool in bases-loaded situations was to focus on getting the runner home from third base. “That lesson of keeping things simple stayed with me forever,” he said. Kent drove in 100 or more runs eight times during a high-offense era, in part because he hit behind Bonds as the slugger set records for bases on balls, intentional and otherwise. Yet, Kent only ranked among his league’s top 10 in a slash stat five times — twice apiece in batting average and slugging percentage, and once in on-base percentage. He was a prolific home run hitter for a middle infielder, clubbing 377 total and 351 as a second baseman, but his modest on-base percentages and subpar defensive metrics limited his value. Still, while his JAWS is below 13 of the other 20 enshrined second basemen, he’s third out of 10 among those elected by committees.
The 49-year-old Jones followed Kent by beginning with a nod to the giants at his position. “I feel like a rookie today surrounded by all these amazing Hall of Famers behind me,” he said. “There are so many guys here that I loved to watch play, and I’m happy to be here with them today. I never got to see Willie Mays play, so Ken Griffey [Jr.] was my guy. I wanted to be like him. For me and Carlos to join Griffey, Willie, and these other great center fielders in the Hall of Fame, it’s hard to put into words.”
“You can go 0-for-4 and still impact the game by taking away singles and extra-base hits. I worked hard on my routes and a preparation. I wanted to be the best center fielder,” said Jones.
The first player from the tiny island of Curaçao to be elected to the Hall of Fame paid tribute to Hensley Meulens, the first Curaçao native to reach the majors, and listed more than a dozen of the countrymen who have followed, including current major leaguers Ozzie Albies, Kenley Jansen, and Ceddanne Rafaela. He spoke of his father, Henry Jones, a legendary amateur player who caught and played center field for Curaçao’s national team in the 1960s and ’70s, and who passed away 10 years ago:
“He showed me how to work hard and play for what it takes to become a successful baseball player and a great person. Because he played center field, I wanted to be a center fielder, and he passed down every bit of knowledge [of] the game to me, like how to read balls off the bat. He hit me fly balls from foul pole to foul pole every time in Curaçao so I could track balls down, because the ocean breeze made tracking balls very difficult on the island.”
Jones also paid tribute to the other seven Hall of Famers from the 1990s and 2000s Braves teams on which he starred, namely manager Bobby Cox, general manager John Schuerholz, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Fred McGriff, and “my brother from another mother,” Chipper Jones, who debuted on the 2018 ballot alongside Andruw and “pushed for me, for my induction, for many years.”
While Chipper was one of four players elected on that 2018 ballot, Andruw nearly lost his eligibility; his 7.3% share now stands as the lowest of any player elected by the writers since the five-year waiting period was instituted in 1954. “A lot of my friends that follow the percentages closer than I did were like, ‘Hey, you’re barely hanging there,’” said Jones in his post-induction media session. “I was just happy to hang in there, [happy] that the writers kept me on the ballot. Getting in after nine years — I didn’t say I had to be the first ballot, I didn’t say I had to be the sixth year, the seventh year, or the last year, or get voted in by the Veterans Committee. I’m in the Hall of Fame now, so that’s all that matters.”
Like Jones, the 49-year-old Beltrán felt as though he were back at the beginning of his career on Sunday, opening his speech by saying, “This is the closest thing to my first at-bat in the big leagues, where I felt excited to be here but at the same time I felt very nervous. These guys really make me nervous,” he said, gesturing to the Hall of Famers behind him.
While Beltrán did not directly address the sign-stealing scandal during Sunday’s speech, it wasn’t far out of mind, particularly as the text on his plaque mentioned his “20-year career that ended in 2017 as World Series champion.” He thanked commissioner Manfred in his speech, as well as the voters: “To the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, I want to say thank you for making me a Hall of Famer… And for those that didn’t [vote for me] — that saw things different — I want to say also thank you. I appreciate your perspective. If baseball has really taught me something, I want to say is that I hope in life, we continue to measure ourselves by the same standard we have used to measure others.”
Beltrán did address the sign-stealing scheme earlier in the week during a Zoom session with reporters, saying, “[T]he fact that I’m the only player mentioned — I don’t know, it’s kind of weird. Sometimes it still gives me a bad taste in my mouth.” Later, he added, “I know that as a team we got together to do what we did, but I’ve got to tell you that this was not like one player’s idea.”
In that session, Beltrán added that after seeing Houston general manager Jeff Luhnow, manager A.J. Hinch, and bench coach-turned-Boston-manager Alex Cora lose their jobs, he knew he couldn’t last as Mets manager. “I feel like [Manfred] mentioning Carlos Beltrán in the report, that was my suspension.”
With Carlos Mendoza recently fired, Beltrán may yet get his shot to manage the Mets, for whom he’s currently a special assistant to president of baseball operations David Stearns. Within his speech, he explained his choice to wear a Mets cap on his plaque:
“Every organization shapes your career. New York shaped my life. It was here where I experienced my greatest success and some of my greatest challenges. Playing for the Mets made me a better man and a better leader. Many of the most meaningful relationships that I was able to build in my career, I did it wearing a Mets uniform. So the Mets cap, what it represents to me is growth and it represents a place where I became the best version of myself.”
Elsewhere in his speech, Beltrán saluted his fellow Puerto Rican Hall of Famers, as well as his mentors, such as Royals legend George Brett (“who taught me that greatness is built long before anybody is watching”), Astros teammates Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, who taught him the importance of playing with pain, and Giants legends Mays and Willie McCovey, with whom he would talk baseball as often as possible during his two months with San Francisco in 2011. As Puerto Rican flags waved, he delivered substantial passages of his speech in Spanish, harkening to his influential role in mandating the presence of translators in every major league clubhouse.
Induction Weekend’s festivities weren’t confined to Sunday. Friday evening featured a cocktail party to celebrate this year’s winner of the BBWAA Career Excellence Award, Paul Hoynes, the beat reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer since 1983. The party takes place on the back porch of the Hotel Otesaga, where new and returning Hall of Famers and their immediate families stay for the weekend — and where entry to everyone else is by invitation only, with signs explicitly warning, “NO AUTOGRAPHS.” The porch opens up onto a breathtaking vista starring Lake Otsego, a view that never gets old.
Photo by Jay Jaffe
Saturday’s Hall of Fame Awards Presentation, conducted at the Glimmerglass Festival Theater about eight miles outside of Cooperstown, honored Hoynes as well as broadcaster Joe Buck, the recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award; Monday, for the golden anniversary of his notable rescue effort; and Bill White, winner of the Buck O’Neil Award. The last of those, which is presented no more than once every three years, honors “an individual whose extraordinary efforts enhanced baseball’s positive impact on society, broadened the game’s appeal, and whose character, integrity and dignity are comparable to the qualities exhibited by O’Neil.”
The choice of White for that honor was particularly resonant, at least to this scribe. Though he was an eight-time All-Star and seven-time Gold Glove winner at first base during his 13-year playing career, White didn’t accrue the kind of numbers that themselves typically drive election. He did start for the Cardinals’ 1964 World Series winners, and while with that organization, he made an impact by speaking on the record about the shoddy treatment of the team’s Black players, including Curt Flood and Bob Gibson, as well as himself. His exposure to those players’ not being invited to a St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce’s “Salute to Baseball” breakfast held in a segregated hotel led the Cardinals to press for integrated lodging for spring training, a trend that spread to other teams training in segregated Florida.
White followed his impressive career with pioneering roles as a broadcaster and executive. In 1971, he began an 18-year run calling Yankees games and working for national networks, one that made him the first full-time Black play-by-play broadcaster in any sport. After retiring from broadcasting, he spent five years (1989–94) as president of the National League, making him the first Black person to assume such a post and the highest-ranking Black executive in any sport at the time. As a candidate for election on the 2024 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee for Managers/Executives/Umpires ballot, he fell two votes short.
“This award is meaningful, because when I grew up, I never imagined a life in baseball,” White said in a prerecorded video accepting his award. “Baseball was a way to earn money for medical school. But signing a contract with the New York Giants put me on a different path. Rooming with Willie Mays helped me become a better baseball player. I played with and against some of the greats of the game. Some of the best years of my life were as a broadcast partner with ‘Scooter,’ Phil Rizzuto. We had a lot of fun, and I couldn’t have asked for a better partner. I was so happy to see him elected to the Hall of Fame. And finally, the years I spent as president of the National League and on the Hall of Fame board were amazing. During my time at the National League, we added a couple of new teams and I helped contribute to the game’s growth, and I want to thank the board for this honor.”
During Saturday night’s cocktail party in the Hall of Fame plaque gallery — the highlight of my Induction Weekend every year, an event that’s like watching a childhood baseball card collection come to life — I summoned the courage to introduce myself to the 92-year-old White, who was holding court in the Hall’s lobby. After congratulating him, I expressed my hope he still might be elected to the Hall proper. He thanked me and said words to the effect that he was more than satisfied with this honor. “I used to run this place, you know,” he said, referring to his presence on the board of directors starting in 2000.
Somehow, his dealing with that less-than-perfect outcome felt like a metaphor for the entire weekend. This year’s induction festivities may not have been everybody’s favorite celebration or celebrants, but it wasn’t hard to find something to take from each of their roads to Cooperstown.
Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! I’m back from my Induction Weekend trip to Cooperstown, with my final chat before the August 3 trade deadline.
12:03
Jay Jaffe: My writeup of Sunday’s induction ceremony and the weekend’s other festivities is in the editorial pipeline. Compared to last year, this was a subdued weekend. Jeff Kent (who gave the best of the three speeches), Carlos Beltrán, and Andruw Jones just don’t have the universal appeal of Ichiro Suzuki — who does? — at least not enough to compel as many people to travel to Cooperstown in high season. Last year an estimated 30,000 people were at induction day, compared to 12,000 — a number that looks very inflated to these eyes but it’s what was officially reported — this year.
12:04
Matt: How many times have you been to Cooperstown and what’s your favorite restaurant there? Partial to breakfast at the Doubleday Cafe myself
12:06
Jay Jaffe: I think this was my 14th trip to Cooperstown, and this is the first calendar year I’ve made it twice. I first went in 2000, via a spur-of-the-moment detour on an upstate trip suggested by my then-girlfriend (bless her wherever she is), then in 2003, and annually from ’16–25 plus twice this year. I was supposed to go twice in 2020, but after a February Hot Stove Weekend fundraiser for the Friends of Doubleday Field, the pandemic scrubbed that year’s induction ceremonies.
12:10
Jay Jaffe: I honestly don’t eat particularly well when I’m in C’town except at the home of my hosts, former Cooperstown mayor Jeff Katz and his wife Karen. I do like the burgers at Doubleday Cafe but they’re not as good as the ones at the tiny Cooperstown Diner across the street. Spurbeck’s Grocery has very good sandwiches but they’re not open on weekends, and Danny’s, which was once my weekend-sandwich-of-choice spot, is under new management and was dealing only pre-made Sandwiches of Sadness this weekend. I did have a couple of excellent meals at Mel’s at 22, which is a somewhat elevated menu and probably my top recommendation.
12:11
BuccoFan: Hi Jay – if you had to bet, who do you think gets the 3rd NLWC spot?
Jay Jaffe
