Final chapter to careers for Fred McGriff, Scott Rolen: Hall of Fame induction

COOPERSTOWN — He was just 17, a lefty-hitting first baseman fresh out of Thomas Jefferson High in Tampa, playing rookie ball for the Gulf Coast Yankees after becoming a ninth-round pick that June. Then the kid heard the news flash that August — he was bound for the Bronx.

This was 1981, and the major-league players’ strike during that season finally had ended.

“When they started the season back, they invited the rookie ball team up to play the Yankees right before they were going to get ready to start the season again,” Fred McGriff said. “Here I am growing up in Tampa, and we’re going to the Bronx. That was a serious eye-opener for me coming from Florida. And then taking that bus through the Bronx, I’m like, ‘Oh, really? I’ve heard about the Bronx. I’m 17 years old. This is what they’re talking about?’ ”

McGriff never got to play for the team with the Bronx address. The Yankees had a few other prospects for the position, including a then-first baseman/outfielder by the name of Don Mattingly who would bat .307 over 14 seasons with them.

So after McGriff hit nine home runs in his second season of rookie ball, the Yankees traded him to Toronto in December 1982 in a five-player deal that landed them reliever Dale Murray, who posted a 4.73 ERA in two-plus seasons before being released. McGriff turned out to be a 493-homer Hall of Famer who got away.

Think about what might have been if he had played in pinstripes at the old Yankee Stadium. That homer count could’ve soared even more. As McGriff put it, “That little short porch in rightfield, that probably would’ve been a beautiful thing for me.”

He was speaking at Clark Sports Center on Saturday, sitting next to former third baseman Scott Rolen. The final chapter of both their baseball-playing stories will be written here Sunday with their inductions into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

“I was always enamored by him, just how strong he was, how he threw the bat head,” Rolen said. “We’d get to first base and I’d be scared to death if he talked to me. But I always looked up to Fred and his career, for sure.”

The respect was so mutual.

“I just think watching Scott across the diamond, [he] played the game right,” McGriff said. “If you hit it to third base, you were going to be out. He was going to make all the plays. And he just came up with big hits.”

Rolen played 17 seasons with Philadelphia, St. Louis, Toronto and Cincinnati from 1996-2012. The seven-time All-Star batted .281 with 316 homers among his 2,077 hits and 1,287 RBIs. He collected eight Gold Gloves along the way, and his elite defensive work helped put him in the Hall.

His wait for the Baseball Writers’ Association of America to make him Cooperstown-bound lasted until the sixth try. He needed 75% of the vote and received 76.3%.

McGriff topped out at 39.8% in 2019, his 10th and final year on the BBWAA ballot. The 16-member Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee voted him in unanimously last December.

The five-time All-Star batted .284 with 2,490 hits and 1,550 RBIs across 19 seasons with Toronto, San Diego, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1986-2004. His final homer total matched Lou Gehrig’s output.

“When you tie Lou Gehrig in an iconic number of home runs, 493, that’s good enough for me to put him in the Hall,” said Cubs radio voice Pat Hughes, who was honored by the Hall on Saturday with the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence.

McGriff posted 10 seasons with at least 30 homers, including seven straight, and eight with at least 100 RBIs.

“If I hit five home runs a month for six months, I was going to get 30,” McGriff said last week. “Seventeen RBIs for six months, I was going to get a hundred. And then you’re trying to get three hits out of 10 at-bats. That’s a little bit tougher. But you’re going to hit .300. And so stuff like that kept me going.”