COOPERSTOWN, New York — Twenty-four years ago, Jill Dubis announced to her husband Ron that they would be going back to Cooperstown while she was in the audience for Kirby Puckett’s Hall of Fame ceremony. Joe Mauer, her industrious, courteous, and intelligent math student, was just selected by his hometown Minnesota Twins. They will return when he got here, she replied.
And there they were this past weekend, some 1,165 miles away from St. Paul, Minnesota’s Cretin-Derham Hall High School. Ron was wearing a t-shirt with the team’s motto, “Optimistic Since 1991,” which was the year of the Twins’ most recent triumph. Jill was in a wheelchair. After 15 excellent seasons with the local squad, Joe had fulfilled his share by being inducted into the Hall of Fame on his first attempt. His math teacher had completed hers now.
“He was a great student, the kind of student you’d want an entire classroom full of,” Jill Dubis said. “Everything you’ve heard about him is true.”
On Sunday, the new class of Hall of Famers hit the stage at the base of a rolling hillside teeming with pilgrims, making it a day for local legends. Jim Leyland, the manager, was among the honorees. He was joined by three former players who developed strong links with their communities: Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, and Mauer.
“It never felt like ‘manager and fans’ in Pittsburgh — it felt more like ‘manager and friends,’” Leyland said. “I know we made you happy, and I know we broke your heart. But I always felt like we were in it together.”
Leyland managed the Detroit Tigers and the Pittsburgh Pirates for 19 of his 22 seasons. He won more than 1,500 games during the regular season and numerous more during the postseason, but his lone championship came during a brief stint with the Florida Marlins in 1997. No World Series was ever won by Beltré, Helton, or Mauer.
The fact that this lovely afternoon was not marred by the champions-or-bust mentality that tends to permeate sports these days was encouraging. There was reciprocal appreciation between Beltré and Texas, Helton and Colorado, and Mauer and Minnesota. In the gallery of plaques, they are eternally connected in bronze.
Mauer had other options for where to play. The Twins threatened to sell him and take over his pay in 2018—his last season—if he desired a shot at the championship in a different city. Mauer admitted it was human nature to dream of a different place to call home. Whether it was in his prime or not, he never liked that vision.
“Ultimately, I never wanted to leave,” he said. “I felt like we could win in Minnesota and that’s what I wanted to do. There’s nothing more that I would have wanted than to win the last game of the year and take it home for the Twins. But I enjoyed putting the uniform on and I was very thankful for that opportunity.”
Alongside Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, and Dave Winfield, Mauer was the fourth native of St. Paul to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. The others made their homes elsewhere before coming back to Minnesota. Mauer was the only Twin in his career.
“Last night at the Twins party, they had all of us on the stage together taking pictures, and it hit me hard then,” Mauer said. “Coming from Minnesota and growing up in Minnesota, they gave me hope and said that you can do it from here.”
Helton is a native of Knoxville, Tennessee, and attended college to play football and baseball rather than go to Colorado. On Sunday, he represented the Rockies, who picked him in 1995, by donning purple socks and a lapel pin from the University of Tennessee.
The team was only two years old at the time, and the sports-obsessed population was still enthralled with baseball when Helton made it to the majors in 1997. Helton was hooked after the Rockies led the league in attendance in each of his first three seasons.
“When I first got there, every game was like a Tennessee home football game,” Helton said. “I mean, they were tailgating and dancing out there and you could hear the music going. So I felt right at home.”
According to Dan Sage, who traveled to Cooperstown with his son Scott from Centennial, Colorado, the passion was reciprocated. The family owned season tickets to both Coors Field and Mile High Stadium. They saw a glimpse of Helton during a rehab assignment with the Grand Junction Rockies late in his career. He was an ordinary guy, but he mingled with the fans like a Hall of Famer in waiting, while he swung in a batting cage beneath the seats.
“Understated, humble, like a lot of folks from Colorado,” Sage said. “And a spectacular player.”
Beltré traveled about a little; at the age of 19, he was promoted by the Los Angeles Dodgers during their turbulent 1998 summer following the Mike Piazza deal. After a period of inconsistent play, he struck gold in 2004 with 48 home runs and an.334 average, landing him a five-year deal with the Seattle Mariners.
Beltré inked a contract with the AL champion Texas Rangers following an outstanding 2010 year with the Boston Red Sox. Some fans, like Matthew Stookey, who was a teenager at the time and had traveled from Fort Worth with his parents to celebrate Beltré’s big day, were not sure what to believe.
“We signed him in the offseason when we couldn’t get Cliff Lee, and in the midst of that, I think we all thought, ‘Oh, no, maybe that’s it,’” he said. “And then Beltré came in and just immediately took on the whole persona of the team and led us to more success, almost getting there. He made it so fun to watch and fun to be a Rangers fan.”
In Game 6 of the 2011 World Series in St. Louis, Beltré’s Rangers famously lost in successive innings, one pitch short of a championship. He persevered during a slump, guiding the team to two further division crowns during his eight years in Arlington.
“At (first), what I wanted to do was get a team that gave me a chance to get to the World Series, and they had a great team,” Beltré said. “But after that, it grew to be more. They allowed me to be myself, to come to a team they already assembled with a great leader like Michael Young and just be part of that. And the fans were so, so great to me. My family and myself felt comfortable in Texas, so after one year or two years, I knew it was the right fit.”
Beltré joins Nolan Ryan and Iván Rodríguez as the players with a Rangers emblem on their plaque. However, Leyland insisted on having a blank cap, and the Hall complied.
“I just couldn’t be disrespectful to anybody,” said Leyland, whose close friend, Tony La Russa, also managed for multiple teams and went in with no logo on his cap. Recent player inductees — Roy Halladay, Greg Maddux, Fred McGriff, Mike Mussina — have done so, too.
Going without a cap might have been a wiser decision, but it is part of a very recent trend that is well-meaning but historically incorrect. They never really wore blank caps. On a Sunday that was full of them, Leyland’s love for the fans, all of them, was heartwarming.
Fighting back tears, he closed his speech this way:
“No matter which Hall of Famer you’re here to support today, or which team you cheer for, your presence is always felt. On your feet in the ninth, with the home team clinging to a one-run lead. Turning on your television for the first game of the World Series and seeing 50,000 fans hoping and praying that this may be their year. Or a little boy or girl getting their first autograph and scurrying back to the stands to show Mom and Dad their latest treasure.
“Ladies and gentlemen, that’s you. That’s baseball. And this is the Hall of Fame. Thank you very much.”
(Top photo of Jim Leyland, Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer (l-r): Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
