Rolen, McGriff enshrined in Hall of Fame in sun-splashed ceremony

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. – On a brilliant summer Sunday under sunny skies, steady stars Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen formally entered baseball immortality. A consistent power source and a brilliant defender respectively, they became the latest inductees to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, accepting their plaques in this idyllic village and taking their places among the greatest who’ve ever played the game.

Both men took stock of the long roads that brought them to this stage, echoing themes of gratitude and family during their induction speeches.

“What a journey, what a dream,” said McGriff, who was the first of the two to accept baseball’s highest individual honor.

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McGriff, 59, cranked 493 home runs over his19-year big league career, split among six teams. He played a key role on the 1995 World Series-champion Braves and amassed 10 seasons with 30 or more home runs and eight 100-RBI campaigns.

Rolen, 48, won eight Gold Gloves as one of the greatest defensive third basemen to play the game and starred in the 2006 World Series as the Cardinals won their first title in 24 years. He played in five postseasons, including two World Series, and was a seven-time All-Star during a 17-year career spent with four clubs. On Sunday, both men stood on the stage with many of the greatest players in baseball history.

• Rolen tips cap to family in speech

“It’s intimidating,” Rolen said. “It’s very intimidating to be in a room with those guys and their wives and their families. They are the legends of the game. … There’s not going to be a quick turnaround here that I’m going to feel like I belong.”

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The two stars of the 1990s and 2000s had the day to themselves, but they were not the only ones honored by the Hall on the weekend. In a separate ceremony on Saturday, three other baseball notables were recognized. Pat Hughes received the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting, John Lowe was honored with the BBWAA Career Excellence Award and Carl Erskine received the Buck O’Neil lifetime achievement award.

Additionally on Sunday, the Hall commemorated the commissioning of the USS Cooperstown. The naval combat ship was named for the 70 Hall of Fame players who paused their baseball careers in order to serve in the United States military during combat.

Still, Sunday primarily belonged to the newest members of the Hall, two players who had to travel long roads to induction.

Rolen made a rapid climb in voting to be elected by the BBWAA in his sixth year on the ballot. He debuted with just over 10% of the vote in 2018, the initial year of his candidacy. However, as a packed ballot cleared due to some players being elected and others timing out, the opportunity arose and Rolen’s totals rose with it. He cleared the 50% threshold in 2021, topped 60 percent in ’22 and cleared the bar with 76.3% in ’23.

He was the first player to debut at under 10% and still be inducted by BBWAA vote. He’s the 18th third baseman to enter the Hall, making it the least-represented fielding position among inductees.

“At no point… did it ever occur to me” that he would be a Hall of Famer, Rolen said.

“But I’m glad it occurred to you.”

McGriff, despite gaudier numbers, endured a more winding road to election. He was unanimously selected by the 16-member Contemporary Baseball Era Committee in December. He had previously spent 10 years on the writers’ ballot, topping out at 39.8% of votes in 2019 -- at least partly a victim of that same congested ballot that held Rolen down in his early years of voting.

Now the two quiet stars will be forever linked as members of the same Cooperstown class.

“I think we’re going to be connected for quite some time,” Rolen said, “and that’s a great honor to be connected with Fred and his family.”

Both men’s speeches were preceded by video tributes narrated by former teammates – Marquis Grissom for McGriff and certain Hall of Famer Albert Pujols for Rolen. Commissioner Rob Manfred read the text of each player’s Hall plaque aloud. They also received the traditional Hall of Fame rings, a gift usually bestowed at a private dinner held after the ceremony on Sunday night. Going forward, however, the plan is for the ring presentation to be part of the public ceremony.

Though they played on opposite sides of the diamond, in some ways the two were rather similar players. They likely had to wait on induction for some of the same reasons -- playing for multiple teams even at their peak, and lost time due to unfortunate circumstances (injuries for Rolen, the 1994 players’ strike for McGriff).

Neither was flashy, but both had the admiration of their peers throughout their careers. McGriff debuted briefly with the Blue Jays in 1986 before emerging with 20 homers in his full rookie season of ’87. He then topped 30 long balls in each of his next seven seasons. He was a part of two blockbuster trades, going to San Diego with Tony Fernandez for Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter after the 1990 season, and then to Atlanta in a momentous Deadline deal in 1993.

That deal helped spur the Braves to their third straight division title, and two years later McGriff celebrated as the franchise hoisted its first World Series championship since moving to Atlanta. McGriff remained productive through stints with Tampa Bay, the Cubs and the Dodgers before retiring after the 2004 season. Even as he put up numbers over nearly two decades, he said he never thought of himself as an immortal.

“As a player your goal is to make it to the big leagues,” he said. “Once you get to the big leagues, it’s kind of like, I’ve got to go out there and perform, I’m trying to win a World Series. You set goals for yourself every year, home runs, RBIs. … You constantly had goals. So for me growing up, it wasn’t like you’re playing to be in the Hall of Fame.”

The same was assuredly true for Rolen, who even at the peak of his stardom often remarked that hitting was never easy for him. The big third baseman debuted with the Phillies as a heralded prospect in 1996 and won Rookie of the Year honors in 1997. He established himself as a productive all-around player in Philadelphia, but never tasted the postseason and was traded to St. Louis shortly before he was to hit free agency in 2002.

The marriage of player and team was a rousing success. Joining fellow stars Pujols and Jim Edmonds to form the “MV3” trio, Rolen produced in the middle of the lineup for Cardinals teams that made the postseason four times between 2002-06. He had a legitimate claim to the World Series MVP Award that went to David Eckstein as St. Louis won it all in ’06.

“I really believe that my time there, me being able to be inducted I think is a reflection of my time in St. Louis from a team success point of view,” said Rolen, who chose to have his plaque depict him in a Cardinals cap. “My career, through the team and through the success I think became a little more notable with two World Series, winning one, four [division] championships. Just on the national stage and the team success, I don’t think there’s any doubt that that’s a part of my career that really speaks the loudest.”

He was traded to Toronto after injury issues and not always seeing eye to eye with manager Tony La Russa, then traded again a year and a half later to the Reds. Rolen enjoyed something of a renaissance in Cincinnati, making two more All-Star teams and reaching the postseason in 2010 and ’12.