Kevin Warneke - The Call to the Hall: When Baseballs Highest Honor Came to 31 Legends of the Sport

Foreword by Marty Appel

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina

All photographs in this book are from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-3007-6

2018 Kevin Warneke and David C. Ogden. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Front cover image of John Smoltz 2015 (National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum / Mil Stewart)

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com

First and foremost, the authors wish to thank Ozzie Smith for saying yes. The Hall of Famer was the first to agree to participate in this book, and was interviewed in Clarinda, Iowa, before attending an annual fundraiser for the Clarinda As baseball team. Goose Gossage, Brooks Robinson and Ferguson Jenkins were next to agree. Others followed.

The authors also wish to thank the Hall of Fame staff, especially John Horne, who went beyond the expected to assist with this book. Susan Rosenlof served as copy editor, and the authors thank her.

Dave Ogden would like to dedicate his work to his three granddaughters, Gracie, Charlotte and Evvie, and to his late father, Clyde C. Ogden. Kevin Warneke is thankful for his wife Dianes patience as he pursued his dream to write this book.

If there was a Hall of Fame for Declaration of Independence signers (and I dont think there was), I suppose they would have been informed of their election by the arrival of courier on horseback delivering the big news.

I also suppose they would all have been voted in, unless any of them had bet on the American Revolution, or used something considered performance enhancing to sign the document, like a ballpoint pen.

As for members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the election process began in 1936, when telephones were in use and folks were excited about the new models where the hearing portion and the talking portion were all one piece.

However one got the news, it was certainly a grand day in the old household. And if those receiving the news had to call someone back long distance (since they were probably out hunting or fishing), it was worth the long distance rate. This was really good news.

As good news over the phone ranks, in fact, it is probably right up there with the birth of a child or a grandchild or the state lottery confirming your availability for a press conference.

Im never going to get elected to the Hall of Fame, largely because there were few witnesses to my line drive single to center, at age 61, at Yankees Fantasy Camp, but I did have one experience that put me close enough.

That was the day Phil Rizzuto got the call that he was going inFebruary 25, 1994.

His pal and longtime teammate, Yogi Berra, a member of the Veterans Committee, had called him with the news. It was, almost immediately, all over the airwaves, the antiquated term Rizzuto still used.

At my home, some 40 miles away, I quietly rejoiced. Phil had never campaigned for this. He had, in fact, told friends that he frankly didnt feel he was up there with Ruth and DiMaggio and Mathewson and Gehrig, which was certainly the classy way for him to handle it. Still, after his contemporary, Pee Wee Reese (whose Brooklyn Dodgers were regularly beaten out by Phils Yankees), was elected, he began to feel differently. He wanted this.

I had been a Rizzuto fan as a child, and I loved him as a broadcaster. Then as a Yankee publicist, I was regularly working with Phil on media and public appearance requests. In 1988, I became his boss, as executive producer of the Yankee telecasts. By then, he was everyones beloved grandfather of the air, weaving tales of Joe DiMaggio and the Joe McCarthy Yankees along with the play-by-play of the Don Mattingly Yankees, rooting for his team, but unapologetically expressing exasperation when things werent going well.

When I heard he had gotten the call, I realized at once that his home in Hillside, New Jersey, was going to be besieged by media, everyone looking for a personal interview. A one-on-one in the parlance of the broadcast media. It was only Phil and his wife, Cora, who lived there, and even after nearly one-half of a century in the spotlight, this was going to be a challenging day for Scooter. So I returned to my public relations roots and quickly drove to his house to handle the press as they arrived and to keep things as sane as possible on Westminster Avenue.

Put out your American flag, I told Cora. This is a star-spangled day! Delightedly, she placed it in the flag holder at the second-story window of their home. (It also made it easy for me to give the press a landmark to look for as they sought to find the house.)

At days end, with the Rizzutos exhausted, I was prepared to say goodbye when they invited me to join them for dinner at a local Italian restaurant. I accepted, and I tell this story now because how many times do you have dinner with someone who has just been elected to the Hall of Fame that very day? Not even his children (who lived too far away) were present.

Everyone at the restaurant stood and applauded as he entered, and we dined in style. (No check, of course, as Phil would mention the restaurant on his Yankee broadcasts several times.)

Add this day to my small list of memorable ones.

Ive been fascinated by the Baseball Hall of Fame since my first visit in 1962, when the Hall, unremarkable in design and seemingly grey from floor to ceiling in both color and attitude, was only 23 years old. Some of the dust was 23 years old. I bought the full collection of black-and-white postcards depicting each plaque and hung them in my room. I wound up going to college in Oneonta, New York, the nearest college to Cooperstown, and visited often. When I went to work for the Yankees, I became the teams principal correspondent to the institution, donating items that felt appropriate. (Ron Blombergs bat as the games first designated hitter and the 19-cent ballpoint pen used by Catfish Hunter to sign the first big free agent contact come to mind.) I loved the ongoing connection and, for 21 years, I was a participant in writing the Hall of Fame plaques, a request from the Halls president. What an honor that was.

One special memory for me was helping Mickey Mantle with his Hall of Fame induction day speech in 1974. He and I had a history; my first job with the Yankees was answering his fan mail.

Jack Lang, then the secretary of the Baseball Writers, used to ask for my help in arranging a New York press conference at the Americana Hotel the day after he called the inductees. It coincided with the week of the Baseball Writers Dinner, and he had a suite at the hotel. So it was a perfect place to hold the press conference, and I had the up-to-date list of media to invite.

After the press conference with Whitey Ford (also elected), Mick asked me for some suggestions for his induction day speech. Look at that, I thought, it was six months until his induction and he was already thinking about his speech.