Gil Hodges Was The Consummate Brooklyn Dodger
His Hall of Fame induction last night was one last (typical) moment of glory for the Boys of Summer.
A few minutes after the news came out that Gil Hodges had been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, I texted his son Gil Jr. to ask about his reaction.
“How does it feel to finally get the call?” I asked.
“Still shaking,” he responded.
For many Mets and Brooklyn Dodgers fans, I imagine that’s how last night felt. On his 35th chance on the ballot, Hodges finally made it. Quintessentially, he did it in typical Gil Hodges and Brooklyn Dodgers fashion. He wasn’t the big name on the ballot. The MLB Network pre-announcement show barely devoted any discussion to his name. Like the Dodgers constantly coming up short against the Yankees teams of the 1950s, it seemed that Gil was destined to fall short again. But then the 1955 World Series happened. Hodges drove in both Dodger runs, and the Dodgers dethroned the Yankees and were champions of the world.
Eventually, the moment was going to come when Gil Hodges finally made it. It had to. Last night, it finally did.
“I was here with my mom when the Hall of Fame called,” said Irene Hodges, Gil’s daughter, in a statement released by the Mets. “She just pounded her heart and said, ‘I’m so happy for Gil.’ My dad was a great manager and a great player, but above all else he was a great dad.”
Joan Hodges is 95. Hopefully, we’ll see her in Cooperstown next summer during Hall of Fame weekend. She still lives, MLB Network was careful to note, in the house in Brooklyn where she and Gil resided when he played for the Dodgers. Now, after more than 50 years, she and her family can stop waiting. Gil has made it.
There’s an almost inconceivable finality about the proceedings. Gil Hodges is a Hall of Famer. It’s the kind of thing that still doesn’t quite feel real to say, and might not for some time. For the longest time, Hodges was conspicuously not a Hall of Famer. Soon he will be. Gil Hodges will be in the Hall of Fame. It’s a done deal. It’s sort of like saying “Max Scherzer is a New York Met.” I still don’t believe that. That guy is going to pitch for us? Gil is in the Hall of Fame?
Yes he is. Yes he is.
Gil Hodges is a Hall of Famer — along with Minnie Miñoso, Tony Oliva, Buck O’Neill, Jim Kaat, and Bud Fowler. It was close to a perfect ballot. Dick Allen missed induction by one vote, but he’ll get in eventually; John Donaldson, likewise, seems like the kid of guy who, in 50 years, will be hard to believe was ever not in the Hall of Fame. For all those who missed the cut this time around, there will be other elections with other committees.
There are no more elections for Gil Hodges. He won’t appear in front of any more committees, and his countless admirers will no longer need to count votes and whip up support. Gil Hodges is a Hall of Famer, and it still doesn’t feel real to say, but it is.
First off, of course, this is for Gil’s family, his teammates, and the players he managed. They’ve been making Hodges’ case for years, and it’s hard to see Hodges being inducted without such relentless support. A big part of his case for induction was how fondly his family, friends, and players remembered him all these years later, and those who delivered that support should celebrate Hodges’ induction more than anyone.
But Hodges’ induction is also a moment to celebrate for baseball fans everywhere. It’s an unabashed good, a rare point when character wins out and the hero triumphs. More than 50 years after he retired, Gil Hodges, the boy from Indiana who changed positions three times and never complained about it, who refused to argue bad calls and never got booed in Brooklyn, finally made it. It’s a signal to everyone: be nice. Chat with the umpire. Run hard. Be a good teammate. Those things still matter. They mattered to Hall of Famer Gil Hodges.
“This was the culmination of a long wait, but I think it’s extremely appropriate,” Carl Erskine, Hodges’ teammate, told me when I reached him by phone shortly after the vote. “Now he’s there where he belongs.”
Absolutely, the process took way too long. It went wrong far too many times. From the ‘90s, when Ted Williams disallowed Roy Campanella’s vote that would have put Hodges over the threshold for induction, to the ‘70s, when Hodges’ death seemed certain to spur a surge of support, but the votes never came. But Hodges and his family persevered, and today they’re celebrating. He was the consummate Brooklyn Dodger. Years of setbacks only powered him forward.