Finally. Finally.

Last Sunday, 12 of the 16 members of the Golden Days committee—made up of baseball players, executives, historians and journalists—voted for my man, and after 39 years and 23 tries, and by the narrowest of margins, Pedro “Tony” Oliva was finally elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. He will be inducted on July 24, 2022, alongside his former teammate, pitcher Jim Kaat, pioneering Black/Latino player Minnie Minoso, and former Brooklyn Dodgers player and New York Mets manager Gil Hodges, who were all elected by the Golden Days committee. A second committe, the Early Baseball Era Committee, voted in Negro League greats Buck O'Neil and Bud Fowler. Of the six, only Oliva and Kaat are still alive. 

Frequent visitors here know the photo of me and Tony-O, taken on Camera Day 1970, by my father. It's an often-used avatar of mine in this digital age, and it gives some sense of how much I loved the man as a kid. As an adult, I'm sort of curious why. I knew he was great—my father and the daily papers told me so. I liked how he looked—he had a pleasant face. I liked the musicality of his name. I think those were the main things. His face might've been the biggest part of it, to be honest. He was very handsome and very calm looking. 

In 1964, he burst onto the scene with one of the greatest rookie seasons of all time. Only five rookies in baseball history have won a batting title, and the others were three 19th-century players and Ichiro Suzuki—who, of course, had alreaady played 7+ seasons of professional ball in Japan—so Oliva really stands alone. But he didn't stop there: He also led the league in runs, doubles and total bases. The next year, he won the batting title again. Roger Angell, at the beginning of his decades-long career as our baseball Boswell, wrote in The New Yorker about how the '65 Twins won the pennant because manager Sam Mele retooled with a new set of coaches: Johnny Sain taught Jim “Mudcat” Grant and Jim Kaat this, and Billy Martin taught Zoilo Versalles that, then Angell adds:

Finally no coaches at all were allowed near young Tony Oliva when he approached the plate, and he wound up with his second batting championship in as many years in the majors. Oliva, an outfielder who bats left, has leopardlike reflexes and great speed in the field, and he may become the best American League hitter since Ted Williams. 

Alas, not quite. Joe Henry once sang that you're only as good as you're knees, and Tony's knees undid him. He led the league in hits three more times, in doubles three more times, and in 1971 he won his third batting title along with his first slugging title, and to most baseball fans he probably seemed Cooperstown-bound. At that point, his career slash line was .313/.361/.507, and most of that during the toughest pitchers' era since the dead ball era. Probably tougher. In deadball, you had Ty Cobb and Nap Lajoie and Shoeless Joe Jackson, all hitting .400 for the season, but highest active career batting average in 1971 was Roberto Clemente's: .318. Oliva was among the best in the game. 

Then he missed most of the '72 season with knee injuries, and when he returned his power wasn't the same. His SLGs went from the .500s to the low .400s, and his batting average kept slipping: .291, .285, .270. In 1976, he hit .211 in 67 games, most of them as a pinch hitter, with just one homerun and only three doubles. He just couldn't leg anything out. His last hit, Sept. 19 against the California Angels, was indicative. In the top of the 7th, in the midst of a rally, he pinch hit for Bob Randall, rifled a single to right to tie the game, and then was immediate removed for a pinch runner. He appeared in two more games and that was that. 

As a result, his career numbers never looked great to Hall of Fame voters. Sure, he hit .304, but that meant less as batting average was devalued by the Bill Jameses of the world for OBP. His final slash line was .304/.353/.476. He never even got to the lower echelon of counting numbers, such as 2,000 hits (1,917) or 1,000 RBIs (947) or 400 doubles (329). Advanced stats such as WAR said he was pretty good, a 43, but no more. Even I thought, “Yeah, no. Fat chance.”

Oddly, there's another Bill James stat that changed my mind on all that: the Black Ink test. It indicates how often a player led the league in a category, and thus indicates their dominace, or not, during their career. This is how Baseball Reference explains it:

• Four Points for home runs, runs batted in or batting average
• Three Points for runs scored, hits or slugging percentage
• Two Points for doubles, walks or stolen bases
• One Point for games, at bats or triples

The average Hall of Famer is a 27. Tony Oliva? He's a 41. He's currently 48th all-time, ahead of George Brett, Wade Boggs, Tris Speaker, Frank Robinson and Joe DiMaggio.

Another is the Gray Ink Test (top 10 in batting/pitching categories). The average Hall of Famer is a 144. Oliva is a 146. 

There's also the Hall of Fame Monitor, also created by Bill James, with 100 meaning a likely Hall of Famer. Tony O is 114. 

Anyway, he's in, and there's been a spark of joy in my chest all week as a result.