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Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff Writer
The long roads to Cooperstown for two of baseball’s most humble stars will end next week, when Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen are inducted into the Hall of Fame.
That humility was on full display Friday, when the two greats conducted separate video calls with the media in advance of the July 23 induction ceremony on the grounds of the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, New York.
“To sit here and say ‘Oh yeah, me and Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron,’ that’s not real,” Rolen said. “That’s not a real situation. These guys are true legends and I get a chance to share that gallery with them, which I’m greatly honored [to do].”
Rolen was elected over the winter in his sixth year of eligibility on the BBWAA ballot, completing a steady rise from being named on 10.2% of ballots on his first try to 76.3%, putting him over the threshold for enshrinement.
The wait for McGriff was even longer despite 493 career homers and six top-10 finishes in MVP voting. After a 24-year professional career that began in the Yankees’ system when he was 17 years old and the required five-year waiting period before ballot eligibility, McGriff topped out at 39.8% in his 10 tries with the writers.
Finally, 41 years after his pro debut, McGriff earned a place in the Hall thanks to the unanimous support of an era committee that met at the 2022 winter meetings.
“As a player, your goal is to make the big leagues,” McGriff said. “And then once you get to the big leagues, it’s kind of like I got to go out there and try to perform, then try to win a World Series. You just keep going on.”
Rolen credits his time with the Cardinals as being pivotal to his eventual election to the Hall. He spent five-plus seasons with the Redbirds, making four All-Star teams, winning three Gold Gloves and finishing fourth in the 2004 NL MVP voting.
Rolen also played 32 of his 39 postseason games during his time in St. Louis. That includes hitting .421 during the 2006 World Series against Detroit for the champion Cardinals which, according to Rolen, raised his stature in the eyes of the eventual Hall voters.
“I really believe that my time there, me being able to be inducted, is a reflection of my time in St. Louis, from a team success point of view,” said Rolen, whose Hall of Fame plaque will feature him donning a Cardinals cap. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that that’s the part of my career that really speaks loudest.”
Rolen came up with the Phillies and starred in Philadelphia almost from the start of his career, though the team did not make the playoffs during that time. Rolen downplayed suggestions that there is lingering acrimony between him, the Phillies or the fans. He will be honored in Philadelphia during a ceremony later this season, when he will be added to the franchise’s Wall of Fame.
“There’s no bad blood between the Phillies and me or my family in any capacity,” Rolen said. “We’re going back in September and that’s a huge thing. I’ve spoken to [owner] John Middleton and I still have a bunch of friends in the organization that we keep in contact with. My time there, I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.”
McGriff’s plaque cap will not feature a logo, fitting for a player who moved around a lot and a performer of his stature. He played for six teams but none for more than five seasons. Often, his travels were not a product of him struggling but because teams on a championship quest viewed McGriff as a final piece to a title puzzle.
It happened after he was acquired by the Braves midway through the 1993 season, when McGriff helped lead Atlanta to the 1995 World Series title. In fact, McGriff, not given to hyperbole or edgy comments, said that the clincher of that Fall Classic is the one game he’d like to experience again from his long career.
“The World Series is right up there because baseball is an individual game and a team game,” McGriff said. “And so when you all come together and finally pull it off and you win a world championship, I mean it’s just a beautiful feeling.”
The beautiful feelings will continue for Rolen and McGriff next week when they deliver Hall acceptance speeches, the text of which both say they have already completed.
When that happens, two understated greats will look out over thousands of adoring fans blanketing the grounds beyond the stage, with legends lined up on stage behind them, some of them childhood heroes and others who were teammates.
Heady stuff for a pair who didn’t necessarily see themselves as likely members of baseball’s most exclusive club. In McGriff’s case, there was at least one peer who believed he belonged in Cooperstown all along.
“I always believed that Fred McGriff was a Hall of Famer,” Rolen said, adding, “I’ve always had a lot of respect for him as a person and certainly as a player. We’re going to be connected for quite some time and that’s a great honor.”