Thats Amaury’s News and Commentary

OAKLAND–Some say that most people do not really get what they deserve in life. That is not the case for these three men that were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum in Cooperstown, in this class of 2014, the greatest Hall of Fame in sports.

The three not only had great numbers, (that helps) and very long careers, but are men of quality and good role models. Any sports reporter, writer, broadcaster, that covered these guys know they are the cream of the crop.

Gregg Maddux won 355 games, that is the eight highest total of wins for a pitcher in Major League history. Tom Glavine won 305, the fourth highest for a left handed pitcher.

Frank Thomas, a first baseman at the beginning of his career, and a designated hitter the remainder of the way, batted for .301 hit a total of 521 home runs and drove in 1,704 (one thousand-seven-hundred-four)runs in a productive19 year career.

There are many other numbers I am not even mentioning here for these three new members of The Hall of Fame. Thomas, after getting the good news, said he thought he was not going to get in, because he is mostly known as a designated hitter, but he is a first baseman and that teams wanted his bat in the lineup as he got older.

Maddux and Glavine where the first two pitchers to be elected together since Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson in the first class of 1939, in that pioneering class,together with Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner.

Covering these three guys that on July 27 will be officially inducted into Cooperstown, I found not only great class, and professionalism,but the greatest dedication to the game. I called games in which Greg Maddux would throw 87 pitches and finish a game in 2 hours and 12 minutes, that friends, you do not see today.

There are starters that throw 30-40 pitches in one inning today. For me, during the years I have been covering baseball, I do not remember a smarter pitcher with more control that Maddux,who never had great speed on his pitches, but could throw the ball through the eye of a needle.

When I first got started in this business, I remember Jim”Catfish”Hunter, of the Oakland A’s, and later of the NY Yankees, he also had that great mastery of the strike zone, and for some reason I refer to him because of that, although he never attained the great numbers like Maddux.

When I was doing the Giants Spanish radio broadcast, I once asked outfielder Stan Javier. of the Giants, about Maddux: “yes, he doesn’t throw that hard, but his pitches have great movement, and he thinks like the hitter, that is why he is so good” Maddux pitched for 23 years, won 20 or more in two seasons, but between 1988 and 2006 he won 15 or more games, and ended up with a 3.16 earned run average.

Tom Glavine was like a lefty Maddux, because he was not a flame thrower, but could fool the best hitters. He pitched for 22 years, and five times won 20 or more games, and had an earned run average of 3.54. Both were teammates for years on the same Atlanta Braves team, which by coincidence will also have their skipper Bobby Cox, inducted this July.

Frank Thomas who originally went to Auburn to play football, but that school was 3 and 4 deep in football positions, took the advice of a coach who told him he should try baseball, Thomas, a smart man, took the advice.

The years Thomas played for the Oakland Athletics, he was always the ultimate professional. Sometimes he didn’t have the time for an interview or two, because he always follow a steady routine, since he arrived in the clubhouse.

The man worked as hard as anybody, aside from that, God gave him a monster of a body,(6’5″, 240) and is known by many by the nickname, of “The Big Hurt”. And he could do that, some of his home runs still have not landed, I remember a few at the Oakland Coliseum that even after I saw it on the television replay, I could still not believe.

For those older baseball fans, Thomas could hit the ball as high, far and deep as Richie Allen. Frank Thomas never ever was even rumored of taking steroids, Thomas was big as a rookie and big as a veteran, (we cannot say the same for other guys in this game during the past 15 years )his career was as clean as the brand new Chicago White Sox uniform that’s going on display soon at Cooperstown; the same can also be said about Maddux and Glavine.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Museum and does News and Commentary each week