"We waited a long time": Mets celebrate as Gil Hodges finally gets Hall of Fame nod
One day after the Mets honored number 41, the team celebrated number 14.
Gil Hodges, a New York baseball icon and manager of the 1969 world championship team, will finally be immortalized in the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer after waiting for decades. An omission from Cooperstown for half a century, Hodges will take his long-awaited place in the Hall of Fame on July 24.
Hodges is joined in the class by Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) electee David Ortiz, as well as Jim Kaat, Minnie Miñoso, Tony Olivia, Bud Fowler and Buck O'Neil.
"We waited a long time for by dad to be elected to the Hall of Fame and it's just thrilling," said Irene Hodges, one of Gil's daughters.
Hodges was honored with a pregame video and the ceremonial first pitches were thrown out by Gil's son, Gil Jr., daughter Cynthia, as well as great grandsons Louis Savelli and Logan Ojeda.
As a player and a coach, Hodges spent 27 seasons in Major League Baseball in total. Hodges played 18 seasons and more than 2,000 career games, hitting 370 career home runs, elected to eight All-Star teams. Hodges won the first three Gold Glove awards at first base after the award was introduced in 1957. Hodges also halted his career for two seasons, serving his country as a Marine after being drafted in 1943 during World War II.
After playing his last games for the Mets in 1962 and 1963, Hodges managed for nine seasons, including four seasons with the Mets. Hodges won 339 games as the Mets manager, including the team's first World Series title in 1969.
Hodges died after suffering a heart attack in April 1972, two days shy of his 48th birthday. His jersey number of 14 was never issued again and was retired in 1973.
The journey for Hodges to the Hall of Fame took decades as the late Hodges appeared on the BBWAA ballot every year from 1969 until 1983, earning over 50 percent of the vote 11 times. Hodges continued to fall short of the 75 percent required for induction, earning 63.4 percent of votes in his final year on the ballot. No candidate had accrued more votes than Hodges had and not been elected in the history of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
"It has been a mission of mercy for [the family], and especially Gil dying so young, to get the recognition that he has received and will receive," said Joe Torre, special assistant to the Commissioner and former Mets and Yankees manager.
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Two decades after his death, Hodges was mentioned at the end of Tom Seaver's Hall of Fame induction by The Franchise in 1992. Seaver called Hodges "the most important man in my life" regarding his baseball career.
"If all of these people who taught me how to get here and what to do when I got here, Gil Hodges told me how to be a pro and stay here," Seaver said in his speech.
Hodges played a vital role in Seaver's career as a manager, as well as a player when the Brooklyn Dodgers brought in Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier in 1947. One day after the Mets honored both Robinson and Seaver during the home opener, Hodges was appropriately recognized as well.
Alongside his three children, about a dozen of Hodges' relatives were also at Citi Field to take part in the celebration. For many of them, they had never met Gil Hodges in person, but enjoyed in a family celebration for the first time since before the pandemic.
"To honor someone that most of them never got to meet, which is in a way sad, but they get to see the reflection of how people talk about him," said Gil Hodges Jr., Gil's son. "People talk about him like they had dinner with him a month ago. The impact of someone who didn't make it to 48 years old could have 50 years after he passed away, to me, gives him some idea of the kind of person he was."
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This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NY Mets honor Gil Hodges' Baseball Hall of Fame induction
