After Decades of Waiting, Tony Oliva is in the Hall of Fame

Today, former Minnesota Twins right fielder Tony Oliva, 46 years after playing his final game in Major League Baseball, was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Oliva (who turned 84 on Thursday) was joined on stage today by his longtime Twins teammate, pitcher Jim Kaat. The two former Twins are part of a class of seven inductees for the Hall’s Class of 2022. Four of the inductions were made posthumously to first baseman Gil Hodges, left fielder Minnie Minoso, Negro Leagues player/manager/ambassador Buck O’Neil, and a 19th-century legend, Bud Fowler, the first black professional baseball player. Oliva, Kaat, Hodges, and Minoso were elected by the Golden Days Eras Committee; O’Neil and Folwer were elected by the Early Baseball Committee. Additionally, the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) elected slugger David Ortiz to the Hall.

On the Golden Days ballot, Oliva, Kaat, and Hodges made it to the Hall of Fame “on the number,” with each player getting 12 out of 16 votes  (75%) from the committee members, the minimum vote tally required for a plaque in Cooperstown. Minoso was elected with 14 votes, while Dick Allen fell one vote shy, with 11 votes. The other candidates were Ken Boyer, Maury Wills, Roger Maris, Billy Pierce, and Danny Murtaugh.

Then 76 years old, the Cuban-born Oliva was on a “second chance” ballot for Cooperstown in December 2014. For that committee vote (called the “Golden Era” Committee), Oliva was on a ballot that included Allen, Wills, Hodges, Boyer, Minoso, Kaat, Pierce, Luis Tiant, and Bob Howsam. In a vote that will forever be infamous, Oliva and Allen each received 11 votes, one measly vote shy of the 12 required for a Cooperstown plaque. Kaat got 10 votes, with Wills getting 9, Minoso 8.

Oliva was openly disappointed, even bitter, at falling just one vote shy of the Hall. But all of that disappointment was erased with last December’s happy news. Oliva was elated when he got the call from the Hall of Fame’s Chairman of the Board, Jane Forbes Clark.

“I was wondering if the phone call would come today or not, because I have a lot of people here in the house, and I don’t want to disappoint them one more time… I’ve been waiting for this moment for 45 years. It’s great. It’s something special. I never dreamed that something like that would happen to me.”

— Tony Oliva (mlb.com & the Star Tribune, December 6th, 2021)

Today, in a joyful speech delivered in English and Spanish, everyone could feel what a special moment this was for Oliva. He told his baseball story, thanked all of the Hall of Famers for keeping his candidacy alive for decades, and punctuated his remarks with the cliche, uttered with emphasis that “baseball has been very, very, very good to me.”

Cooperstown Cred: Tony Oliva (RF)

• Minnesota Twins (1962-76)
• Career: .304 BA, .353 OBP, .476 SLG, 220 HR, 947 RBI, 1,917 Hits
• Career: 131 adjusted OPS+, 43.0 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 1964 A.L. Rookie of the Year (.323 BA, 217 Hits, 109 Runs, 150 OPS+, 6.8 WAR)
• Finished 2nd in A.L. MVP voting twice (1965, 1970)
• 3-time American League batting champion (1964, 1965, 1971)
• Led the A.L. in Hits 5 times
• 8-time All-Star, won 1966 A.L. Gold Glove
• Led the A.L. right fielders in putouts six times and in assists twice

(cover photo: La Vida Baseball)

This piece was originally posted in December 2020. It has been updated with the news of Oliva’s induction to the Hall of Fame. The “case for/against” is left mostly intact.

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Tony Oliva’s Early Years

Tony Oliva was born on July 20, 1938, in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. The son of Pedro Oliva and Maria Lopez, Oliva’s given birth name was Pedro Oliva II. He was the third of ten children, the oldest of four boys. As it has been for many players from the Caribbean, for many decades, Oliva was believed to have been born three years later. When he was signed by the Minnesota Twins in 1961, he was actually 22 years old. According to his SABR bio, it’s unclear whether the Twins knew he was 22 (instead of 19) at the time of his signing, but the preponderance of evidence supports the theory that he was believed to have been born in 1941.

Because of the 1959 Castro revolution in Cuba, getting out of the country was an issue in the spring of 1960. Oliva did not have a birth certificate, but his younger brother Antonio did, and he borrowed Antonio’s birth certificate to get a passport. So the elder Oliva, by using his brother’s papers, forever became known as Tony Oliva instead of Pedro Oliva.

In his autobiography Tony O!: The Trials and Triumphs of Tony Oliva (1973), Oliva claims that he was Pedro Oliva’s second son, born in 1941. Earlier baseball encyclopedias listed his birth year as 1940. Today, Baseball-Reference, the Society of American Baseball Research, and the Baseball Almanac go with 1938. (It was not uncommon for Latin players to play at an announced age lower than their actual age. In Tony’s case, the practical necessity of using a birth certificate with a 1941 date on it was what led to the birth year “fib.”) Incidentally, the Twins as a team are still going with the original story: his officially listed birthday on the team’s official website is July 20, 1941.

The Minor Leagues

If we assume that 1938 is the correct birth year, Tony Oliva made his professional debut in 1961 at the age of 22 with the Wytheville Twins in the Appalachian League. Wytheville is in the western part of the state of Virginia, right near the West Virginia border. The small city did not have any hotels for blacks, so Oliva was housed in a Negro rooming house with two African-American teammates.

On the field, Oliva struggled in the field (he had never played under lights before) but hit like the future 3-time batting champion he would eventually become. In just 64 games, Oliva hit a whopping .410 (with 10 HR, 81 RBI, and a 1.086 OPS). The transition off the field to life in America was difficult for Oliva, who spoke only Spanish and became increasingly homesick. Unfortunately, due to the increasing tensions between Washington and the Castro regime, a return to his homeland in the off-season was impossible.

In 1963, Oliva tore up the South Atlantic League (playing for the Class A Charlotte Hornets): he slashed .350/.402/.559 with 17 HR, 35 doubles, and 93 RBI. At the end of the campaign, he was named the league’s MVP. After less than 200 games in the minors, the lefty-swinging Oliva was rewarded with a September call-up to the big club in Minnesota. Oliva made his Major League Baseball debut on September 9, 1963. It was a pinch-hitting appearance, and he struck out swinging. Five days later, Oliva made his first start and went 2 for 3 with 3 RBI. He finished his abbreviated MLB cup of coffee with 4 hits in 9 at bats for an official batting average of .444.

Oliva actually made the big league club out of spring training in 1963, but he was reassigned to AAA Dallas just before the season began. Playing for the Dallas-Fort Worth Rangers in the “not all teams are on the” Pacific Coast League, Oliva continued to shine offensively, hitting .304 with 23 HR and 74 RBI. He earned another September promotion and went 3 for 7 (all in pinch-hitting performances).

1964: Rookie of the Year

When Tony Oliva arrived in Orlando for spring training in 1964, it was fairly clear from the beginning that the Twins intended to keep their sweet-swinging prospect with the big league team for the regular season. The leading indicator of the team’s intentions was Oliva’s new uniform number 6. As any baseball fan knows, teams don’t give single-digit uniform numbers to minor leaguers. For Oliva, the number had special significance in that he wanted to pattern himself after the Detroit Tigers’ great right fielder Al Kaline, who also wore #6. Kaline was already an 11-year MLB veteran and 9-time All-Star, even though he was only 3 1/2 years older than Oliva.

The Twins opened up a spot for Oliva in right field by moving All-Star Bob Allison to first base. From the very beginning, manager Sam Mele put Oliva into the heart of the Minnesota batting order. Tony O was in the #3-hole in 125 of his 159 starts in his rookie campaign, hitting 2nd in 33 games and cleanup once.

In the second game of the season, Oliva nearly hit for the cycle, missing the feat with a warning-track fly ball in the top of the 9th. Overall, the 22-year-old (err, 25-year-old) rookie hit an unbelievable .439 in the first 24 games of the season while contributing 7 HR, 21 RBI, and a 1.213 OPS (thanks to a .748 slugging percentage). Although he naturally couldn’t keep up that pace, he still finished the season with a slash line of .335/.367/.582 with 18 homers and 51 runs driven in. For his superb work with the bat, Oliva was voted to start the All-Star Game at Shea Stadium in New York, winning out over his idol Kaline. Oliva, who was joined by teammates Allison and future Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew, was the only rookie to be named to the starting lineup.

(Incidentally, at the time, the All-Star voters were fellow players, managers, and coaches, not the fans).

Oliva went 0-for-4 in his first Mid-Summer Classic but continued to pound the ball when the regular season resumed. He finished his rookie campaign with a .323/.359/.557 slash line. The .323 batting average was good enough to lead the American League; it was the first of his three batting titles. Oliva also hit 32 home runs (in what would be a career-high), drove in 94, and led the A.L. in runs (109), hits (217), doubles (43), and total bases (374). The hit and total bases total also led all of Major League Baseball. Using today’s metrics, he also posted a 6.8 WAR and 150 OPS+.

This remarkable campaign earned Oliva the A.L. Rookie of the Year award; the vote was nearly unanimous (19 out of 20). Oliva also finished 4th in the A.L. MVP vote, finishing behind Brooks Robinson, Mickey Mantle, and Elston Howard.

Although it was a great season for the rookie from Cuba, it was a disappointment for the club as a whole. After two consecutive 91-win campaigns, the ’64 Twins won just 79 games.

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1965: MVP Near-Miss and Pennant

Tony Oliva continued his torrid hitting in his sophomore campaign. With a .321 batting average, the Twins right fielder became the first player in baseball history to win two consecutive league batting titles at the start of his career. He also led the league in hits again, this time with 185. He made his second consecutive All-Star team, this time as a backup to Rocky Colavito. At the end of the season, Oliva finished second in the A.L. MVP vote to his teammate, shortstop Zolio Versalles.

With Versalles and Oliva leading the way, the Twins won 102 games in the regular season, enough to capture the Twin Cities’ first A.L. pennant. The Twins were matched up in the World Series against the 1963 World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers didn’t have the same quality of offense that the Twins possessed but had two future Hall of Famers in their starting rotation, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, along with a solid #3 (Claude Osteen). Minnesota, however, also had two top-flight aces (Jim Kaat and Mudcat Grant).

Starting in Bloomington, the series started well for the Twins: Grant and Kaat out-dueled Drysdale and Koufax as the Twins took a 2-0 series lead. In Game 2, Kaat and Koufax had matched zeroes going into the bottom of the 6th inning. After Versalles reached on an error, Oliva drove home the MVP with an RBI double to break the tie. The Twins went on to win 5-1.

Back in Los Angeles, however, the Dodgers’ pitchers dominated. Osteen, Drysdale, and Koufax all tossed complete games, holding the powerful Twins lineup to just 2 runs and 14 hits in a three-game sweep. Oliva was responsible for one of those two runs with a solo home run off Drysdale in a 7-2 Game 4 loss.

As the series returned to Minnesota, the Twins took Game 6 by a 5-1 score thanks to home runs by Bob Allison and the pitcher, Grant. Oliva went 2 for 4 in the win. And so, as the series headed to a seventh game, all 6 games had been won by the home team in a trend that would resume the next two times Minnesota made the Fall Classic (1987 and 1991).

Game 7 featured a pitching matchup between Koufax and Kaat, both working on two days’ rest. The Dodgers won 2-0 behind a 3-hit shutout by the Left Arm of God. With 10 strikeouts, it was one of the signature performances of Koufax’s career. Oliva went 0 for 3 with two whiffs; he hit .192 for the series.

Perennial All-Star

Tony Oliva would never reach the World Series again, although he and the Twins were in a down-to-the-wire pennant race in 1967 and won two A.L. West titles in 1969 and 1970 after baseball expanded from 20 to 24 teams.

After two terrific debut seasons, Oliva continued to hit like a potential Hall of Famer in waiting for the next six campaigns. From 1966-71, he averaged .310 with 22 HR, 88 RBI, and an OPS+ of 138. He made the All-Star squad in all six seasons (starting in ’66 and ’67) and won his first and only Gold Glove in ’66. He did not win his third straight batting title in ’66 but finished 2nd to Triple Crown winner Frank Robinson.

Although he was cursed with physically deformed knees that would ultimately derail his career, Oliva stayed in the lineup for most of his first eight MLB campaigns; he averaged 147 games played, only missing significant time in 1968 (128 games) and 1971 (126). He had surgeries on his knees in ’66 and ’67 due to torn ligaments but his first major injury occurred when he dislocated his left shoulder while diving for a ball late in 1968. The injury ended his season on August 31, 1968, in what was the Twins’ 137th game of the campaign.

Back to Back A.L. West Titles

Oliva came back strong in 1969, playing in 153 games. Playing for first-time manager Billy Martin, Oliva hit .309 with 24 HR and 101 RBI, helping lead the Twins to 97 wins and the A.L. West crown. On arguably the best day of his career, Oliva got 8 hits in one day, on June 29th in Kansas City. In a doubleheader, he flew out in his first at bat and then delivered 8 consecutive knocks, including a 5-for-5 performance in the nightcap with 2 taters and 5 ribbies.

In the first-ever American League Championship Series, the Twins were matched up against the 109-win Baltimore Orioles. In Game 1, with Minnesota trailing 2-1 in the top of the 7th inning, Oliva blasted a 2-run home run off Mike Cuellar. The lead would not hold. Boog Powell hit a 9th-inning homer off Jim Perry to send the game into extra innings; Baltimore prevailed in 12 innings. Game 2 also went to extra frames, with the O’s winning in the 11th. Behind future Hall of Fame hurler Jim Palmer and a 5-for-6, 5 RBI performance from center fielder Paul Blair, Baltimore walloped the Twins in Game 3 by an 11-2 score. From 1969-84, the LCS matchups were just five games so it was a three-game sweep for the Birds.

Martin was fired after the 1969 campaign (thanks to run-ins with owner Calvin Griffith and a mid-season fight with pitcher Dave Boswell). Under new manager Bill Rigney, Oliva and the Twins had another big year in 1970. In 157 games, Oliva slashed .325/.364/.514 (137 OPS+) to go with 23 HR, 107 RBI, and an A.L. best 204 hits and 36 doubles. For that effort, he was 2nd in the A.L. MVP balloting (to Powell).

The Twins as a team won 98 games for the second consecutive A.L. West crown. In the ALCS, the Orioles swept the Twins again, and there were no close games this time. Baltimore outscored Minnesota 27-to-10. All told, the Twins lost all 6 LCS games in ’69-’70, but Oliva’s bat can hardly be faulted. The Twins right fielder slashed .440/.462/.840 in 26 plate appearances.

Tony Oliva’s Last Big Season

The second big on-field injury of Oliva’s first eight campaigns came in the last of those eight. On June 29, 1971, he hurt his already weak left knee when diving for a line drive off the bat of Oakland’s Joe Rudi. Tony O was in the midst of the best seasons of his career: he was slashing .375/.406/.654 with 18 HR and 49 RBI at the time of the injury. He managed just two pinch-hitting performances in the team’s next 14 games. Thanks to his superb first half, Oliva got the third most votes among all American League players in the All-Star balloting, finishing behind only future Hall of Famers Brooks Robinson and Carl Yastrzemski. It was the fourth time Oliva was voted to the starting lineup, but he could not play this time.

Overall, the All-Star right fielder faded after that June 29th injury: he slashed .289/.322/.413 (with 4 HR and 32 RBI) in his final 58 games of the campaign. Even so, he finished with a .337 batting average and enough plate appearances to qualify for his third and final batting crown. Oliva’s .546 slugging percentage was also the best in the Junior Circuit. Despite just appearing in 126 games, Oliva finished 10th in the A.L. MVP voting and was tabbed “Player of the Year” by the Sporting News.

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Final Five Campaigns

Thanks to continued issues with his right knee, Tony Oliva was limited to just 10 games played (all in June) in 1972. A second major operation on July 5th ended this lost season prematurely. If not for the good fortune of the American League’s creation of the designated hitter rule, his career might well have been over or one limited to pinch-hitting duties.

The implementation of the DH in 1973 allowed manager Frank Quilici to keep Oliva’s bat in the lineup for 138 starts and 8 pinch-hitting appearances. Oliva is credited with hitting the first-ever home run as a DH. It was a first-inning, Opening Day two-run tater in Oakland off future Cooperstown inductee Catfish Hunter. For the season, the 34-year-old Oliva finished with a respectable slash line of .291/.345/.410 to go with 16 home runs and 92 RBI.

Oliva played in 127 and 131 games in the 1974 and ’75 campaigns, hitting .285 in ’74 and .270 in ’75 with 13 taters each season. Overall, although not the same quality hitter he used to be, Oliva posted a useful 107 OPS+. In 1976, his final campaign (as a player-coach), Oliva logged just 128 plate appearances; he slashed a woeful .211/.234/.260. Oliva was 38 years old at the end of his career. He did not play in the field once in his final four MLB seasons.

In the 34 years since his playing days ended, Oliva spent many of them as a first base coach, hitting coach, or roving minor-league hitting instructor for the Twins. He’s often credited with helping develop the hitting skills of Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett.

In 1991, his uniform number 6 was officially retired by the franchise. He was the third member of the Twins so honored, following his longtime teammates Harmon Killebrew and Rod Carew. (In the years since, the Twins have also retired the uniform numbers of Puckett, Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven, Kent Hrbek, and manager Tom Kelly).

Two decades later, when the Twins opened their jewel of a ballpark (Target Field), the team honored its longtime star with a huge bronze statue at the entrance to the yard.

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Oliva and the Hall of Fame Vote

Tony Oliva first hit the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) ballot in 1982, the same year as Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, and Billy Williams. Hall of Fame voting by the BBWAA often involves positional comparisons. Williams and Oliva suffered greatly compared to Aaron and Robinson, both of whom sailed into Cooperstown on the first ballot. (Amazingly, 9 voters did not vote for Aaron, with 45 choosing not to cast a ballot for Robinson).

Anyway, Williams (23%) and Oliva (15%) both received low vote totals in their maiden BBWAA appearances. In the years that followed, voters flocked to Williams (.290 BA, 426 HR, 2,711 Hits) while the support for Oliva (.304 BA, 220 HR, 1,917 Hits) crept up more slowly. Williams made it into Cooperstown in 1987; Oliva got 38.7% of the vote that year.

In 1988, the support for Oliva zoomed up to 47.3% in what was his 7th year on the ballot. It was the third-highest total among all players, behind only first-ballot inductee Willie Stargell and pitcher Jim Bunning.

In the previous 50+ years of BBWAA voting, every player except for Gil Hodges who had reached 47% of the vote eventually made it to the Hall of Fame, either through the writers or later through the Veterans Committee. So what happened in 1989? What happened is that the ballot featured four superb first-time candidates (Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski, Gaylord Perry, and Fergie Jenkins). Again, suffering in comparison, Oliva’s vote support plummeted to 30.2%.

In the seven years that followed, Oliva earned between 32.0% and 40.7% but would never get close to 50% again. It’s important to understand how the history of the Hall of Fame voting works. The threshold to earn a plaque in Cooperstown requires 75% of the vote, but the truth is that the Veterans Committee has inducted most of the players who cross the 40% barrier. In fact, until last December, Oliva had the third most total BBWAA votes of any player not in the Hall.

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Oliva and the Veterans Committee

The final of Tony Oliva’s 15 years on the BBWAA ballot was in 1996 (he got 36.2% of the vote). In the years that have followed, he was on nine different iterations of the Veterans Committee ballot. The first time he was on the Veterans’ ballot was in 2000. He wasn’t reluctant to toot his own horn. What he said at the time, 24 years after his final MLB campaign (when he was 61 years old), is haunting when you consider that he had to wait until he was 83 before getting the Hall call.

“Twenty-four years is a long time to wait. You could die before that. It’s better to go into the Hall of Fame when you are living.”

— Tony Oliva (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, February 27, 2000)

The 2000 committee did not choose Oliva. Instead, they elected manager Sparky Anderson, 19th-century star Bid McPhee and Negro Leagues star Turkey Stearnes. Bill Mazeroski, the 10-time All-Star and 8-time Gold Glove-winning second sacker for the Pittsburgh Pirates, fell just one vote shy of the Hall of Fame (as Oliva and Dick Allen did in 2015). One year later, the 2001 committee elected Mazeroski and another Negro League star, Hilton Smith.

In the next eight years, the Hall held four votes in which, rather than using a small committee, they opened up the voting to all living Hall of Famers. In 2003, ’05, ’07, and ’09, Oliva (with Hodges, Ron Santo, and others) was on that ballot. Each year nobody received 75% of the vote. In what had to be super frustrating to Oliva, he got over 50% of the vote each time but not 75%.

• In 2003, he got 48 out of 81 votes (59%)
• In 2005, he got 45 out of 80 votes (56%)
• In 2007, he got 47 out of 82 votes (57%)
• In 2009, he got 33 out of 64 votes (52%)

Each time, a majority of living Hall of Famers affirmed that Tony Oliva deserved to join their ranks. The only other player who received more than 50% of each of those votes was longtime Chicago Cubs third baseman, Ron Santo.

The Hall abandoned the “all hands on deck” voting process after the four shutouts, going back to a small committee format. In December 2011, on the Golden Era Committee ballot, Santo finally made the Hall; he got 15 out of 16 votes. Sadly, he was inducted posthumously since he passed away one year prior. On that ballot in which the Golden Era Committee elected Santo, Kaat got 10 votes; Hodges and Minnie Minoso got 9 each; Oliva got 8.

And then, of course, there was the infamous Golden Era vote for the Class of 2015. I distinctly remember that day, December 8, 2014. At the winter meetings in San Diego, the chairman of the Hall’s Board of Directors (Jane Forbes Clark) took to the podium to deliver the news. When she announced that the committee had failed to elect a single new member, the groans from the media members were anguished. When Clark then reported that Oliva and Allen had fallen just one vote shy of Cooperstown, the shock and dismay among the members of the assembled media were palpable.

“The Hall of Fame is Not Fair”

The 2015 ballot was the sixth time Oliva had received at least 50% of the vote in one of the various iterations of the Veterans Committee. In most elections, 50% is a win. Not for the Hall of Fame votes, which requires 75%. Based on his near misses, it’s arguable that Oliva was the second most hard-luck Cooperstown case to Hodges, who had been on the Veterans Committee ballots 19 times before getting elected last December with Oliva.

Oliva watched that December 2014 announcement by Clark from his home in Bloomington, Minnesota.

“I don’t get too high and I don’t get too low… This thing happens to me many, many times. But this time was more close… I feel a little bit disappointed that they did not get anybody [voted in]. If they get somebody in at least I feel better, because I think someone deserves to be in… The Hall of Fame is not fair. For some people, it’s beautiful. For a lot of people, it’s not fair.’’

— Tony Oliva (December 8, 2014, Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

At the time of this electoral shutout, the Hall was next scheduled to vote on players from Oliva’s era in December 2017, three years later. However, as if to pour salt on his wounds (along with Allen, Kaat, Minoso, and Wills), in July 2016, the Hall announced a revised timetable for the Veterans Committee votes, which pushed the next Golden Days ballot from December 2017 to December 2020. Then, there was a delay for another year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The long wait is now over. Today, Tony Oliva was inducted into the Hall of Fame. In the balance of the piece (again, originally written in December 2020), I’ll tackle the question of whether Tony O was worthy of the honor.

The Hall of Fame Case for and against Tony Oliva

The Cooperstown case for Tony Oliva is an old-school peak case. If he had logged the identical statistics from 1992-2006 as he did from 1962-1976, he would likely have gotten less than 5% of the vote and have been “one and done” on the BBWAA ballot. Oliva’s career WAR (43.0) would be disqualifying from writers who take stock in the metric, and his OPS+ (131), while very good, is tied for 116th among the 692 players with at least 6,000 career plate appearances.

Oliva’s Hall of Fame case was (and remains) based on his .304 career batting average, three batting titles, two 200-hit seasons, eight All-Star nods, his Rookie of the year trophy, and high finishes (2nd) in two MVP votes. It’s for these accomplishments that Oliva has 114 points on the 1980s version of the Bill James Hall of Fame monitor (100 points on this scale indicates a likely Hall of Famer).

However, because he didn’t become an MLB regular until he was 25 and because his bad knees caused him to fade in his mid-30’s Oliva’s “counting” stats (220 HR, 947 RBI, 870 Runs, 1,917 Hits) are lacking. This is undoubtedly what kept him under 50% of the vote in 15 appearances on the BBWAA ballot. In the history of baseball, there are only three corner outfielders in the Hall of Fame with fewer than 250 taters, fewer than 1,000 ribbies, fewer than 1,000 runs scored, and fewer than 2,000 hits. Those three men are Elmer Flick, Chick Hafey, and Ross Youngs. Flick (who played for the Phillies in the late 19th century and Cleveland Naps in the early 20th) had an OPS+ of 149 and WAR of 53.0. The others (Hafey and Youngs) are widely considered to be among the most dubious Hall of Fame selections by previous Veterans’ Committees. Oliva clearly had a superior career to both, but if we started electing people who are simply better than the worst Cooperstown picks, it would open the doors to hundreds of new members.

If you open up the under 250/1000/1000/2000 club to other positions, 15 more Hall of Famers join the list, including Jackie Robinson. What the 18 men all have in common is that all of their careers were finished by 1957. It’s an absolute fact that players from the second half of the 20th century (and beyond) have generally been held to a higher standard than those from the first half of the 20th century.

Anyway, the point to this boring story is that there is enough precedent for a player with Oliva’s counting stats to gain entry to Cooperstown that it merits a closer analysis of the strength of his peak performance.

Tony Oliva’s Peak (1964-71)

The argument in favor of Tony Oliva for the Hall of Fame rests on his superb eight-year performance that started in his rookie year (1964). Oliva was a perennial All-Star in those years. As previously noted, he led the American League in hits five times, in doubles five times, and won three batting crowns. Oliva was a player who turned himself into a solid defensive player, but his primary value was always with the bat. This makes it easier for those of us who didn’t see him play to evaluate his excellence statistically. Offensive stats have always been easier to put into proper context than defensive numbers.

So, let’s see how Oliva ranked in a variety of offensive categories from 1964-71, his All-Star years:

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These numbers are good, but they’re not overwhelming. An OPS+ of 140 for 8 years is really good, but it’s not extraordinary. Using a recent example, Lance Berkman had a career OPS+ of 144, and he was drummed off future BBWAA ballots when he got just 1.2% of the vote in 2019. In Oliva’s favor is that all of the names above him on the OPS+ list are Hall of Famers except for Frank Howard and Boog Powell, both of whom were one-dimensional sluggers with very little defensive value.

With that 140 OPS+ from 1964-71, Oliva is tied with Joe Torre, who is also in the Hall, but Torre was elected as a manager. In favor is that Oliva is ahead of Billy Williams and Ron Santo (each of whom had a 138 OPS+ for these years).

The one statistic on the above graphic that is not offense-only is WAR (Wins Above Replacement). Being 9th for an eight-year period of time is good, but, again, it’s not overwhelming. The good news is that players ahead of Oliva on the list are all in the Hall of Fame except for Dick Allen, with whom he shared the pain of falling one vote shy on the 2015 vote. The bad news is that the player right behind Oliva on the 1964-71 WAR list is Jim Fregosi, who virtually nobody has ever called a Hall of Famer.

Oliva’s chief statistical calling cards are his batting average, hits, and doubles. As you can see, he fares well in these categories. Regarding his BA, he’s behind Matty Alou, but only one point behind, and Alou was a true singles hitter while Oliva had extra-base and home run power.

Still, having made dozens of these “peak” statistical charts for other Hall of Fame candidates, this one is unconvincing.

Tony Oliva vs. Dick Allen

As noted more than once, Tony Oliva and Dick Allen were in the same Hall of Fame boat until last December, having both tasted the bitterness of being a vote shy of Cooperstown immortality on the 2015 ballot. Allen passed away two years ago, and his legions of supporters remain bitterly disappointed, given that Allen fell one vote shy of Cooperstown again for the Class of 2022 while Oliva made it with exactly 75%.

Allen and Oliva were true contemporaries. They were both named Rookie of the Year in 1964. Allen won an MVP trophy (in 1973) while Oliva finished second twice. Allen made 7 All-Star teams; Oliva made 8. Both men are short on counting stats thanks to injuries that curtailed their careers. They both fell short of 2,000 hits, which has been an unofficial minimum for any Hall of Famer since Jackie Robinson.

Of course, there is a notable difference in how each man was regarded during their playing days. Allen was booed by the home fans because of the color of his skin. He was traded three off-seasons in a row in the middle of his peak. He notoriously feuded with management and had a bad reputation for his attitude. (I thoroughly examined all of this in my piece about Allen). Oliva played only for the Minnesota Twins. He was (and still is) almost universally loved in the Twin Cities.

Oliva’s eight-year peak coincides precisely with Allen’s peak, with the crucial exception that Allen’s peak lasted three more years (until 1974). Oliva was only able to play in 10 games in 1972, the year Allen won the A.L. MVP with the Chicago White Sox. You may have noticed in the section above that Allen’s name was among Oliva’s “players behind” lists in multiple statistical categories. Here is a look at the two men during Oliva’s peak:

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Allen has the clear edge as an overall offensive player due to his higher on-base and slugging percentages. Their WAR is nearly identical because Oliva was much better defensively.

If, however, this were a binary choice for a voter between Allen and Oliva, what happened in the next five years gives a massive edge to the bespectacled slugger from Wampum, Pennsylvania.

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Of course, it didn’t have to be a binary choice between the two men. Any voter on the 2022 Eras Committee could vote for both, and many did.

Tony Oliva vs. Minnie Minoso

Another member of the 2022 Golden Days ballot was Minnie Minoso, the outfielder best known for his days with the Chicago White Sox and his cameos with the team in his 50’s. Minoso was the top vote-getter on this ballot, getting 14 out of 16 “yes” votes.

Like Oliva, Minoso was born in Cuba. Minoso’s career started much earlier (in 1949): he became a full-time player in 1951, the first black player for the Chisox. Minoso was mostly a left fielder, while Oliva played almost exclusively in right (until his DH years).

Here are the numbers for Tony O and the “Cuban Comet.”

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On balance, my personal opinion is that Minoso has the edge (I made his case in this piece) but it’s reasonably close.

Top Right Fielders not in the Hall of Fame (as of 1982)

One of the questions many Hall of Fame pundits ask themselves is how a player compares to others at his position who are not in the Hall of Fame. At the time he hit the BBWAA for the first time (in 1982), it’s arguable that Oliva was the third-best retired right fielder who was not already in Cooperstown. He was certainly behind the two legends (Aaron and Robinson) who were elected that year.

Once Aaron and Robinson were enshrined, here’s a list of the top right fielders (listed by WAR) who were retired and not in the Hall of Fame as of the beginning of the 1982 season:

(Note: I’m excluding Shoeless Joe Jackson here because the reasons for his lack of enshrinement are due to him having participated in the Black Sox scandal of 1919). 

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Looking at these numbers, it’s clear that Oliva deserved to be in the conversation about being the best right fielder not in the Hall of Fame (as of 1982), but it’s hardly a slam dunk. Not shown on the graphic above are Bobby Bonds’ 461 career stolen bases. Although the numbers we use today give Bonds a significant edge over Oliva, the BBWAA writers weren’t biting. Bonds never got more than 10.2% of the writers’ votes in 11 appearances on the ballot.

As for Roger Maris, who was on the 2022 Golden Days ballot but got no reported votes, he has the benefits of being a two-time MVP and having eclipsed Babe Ruth’s single-season home mark when he hit 61 home runs in 1961, but his overall numbers are significantly lacking.

Top Right Fielders not in the Hall of Fame (as of 1999)

As we’ve seen, Tony Oliva was on his first Veterans Committee ballot in 2000. So, how does he compare to other right fielders whose careers had concluded before that vote?

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Without going down the endless rabbit hole of comparing every player against every other player, it’s clear that there are some terrific right fielders from the second half of the 20th century who do not yet have plaques in Cooperstown. In particular, I’m a strong proponent of Dwight Evans for the Hall of Fame.

It’s important to note that, in the Hall’s Eras Committee process, Tony O was compared to his peers, not to the players who followed. I showed this list only for context.

Why has Oliva Outperformed his Statistics in Hall of Fame Voting?

I’m going to tackle a tough question here. Having documented Oliva’s numbers (both traditional and sabermetric), they clearly seem to fall a little short for a Hall of Famer. But, as we’ve shown, he got many votes over the years, both from the BBWAA and the Veterans Committee. It begs these questions:

1. Did Tony Oliva have a career that transcends his numbers?
2. Why has Oliva gotten so much more support from the BBWAA and Veterans Committees than players that have a superior statistical record?

Being only 55 years of age, growing up in New York City, and having never seen him play, I have a hard time answering the first question. He was not a pioneer unless you count him serving full-time as a designated hitter at the onset of the creation of the rule. His career was curtailed by his bad knees, but there are countless players who aren’t in Cooperstown because of injuries.

The second question is a bit easier to answer. First of all, there’s a long-term Hall of Fame bias that favors players who toiled for one team only and are beloved in the city in which they played. That was an asset for Oliva.

Secondly, the first impression that fans and writers have on players often imprints on their brains forever. Oliva’s first impression was incredible. He was the Rookie of the Year in 1964 and finished in the Top 4 of the MVP vote in his first two MLB campaigns. He never failed to be selected to the All-Star squad until his lost season of 1972.

Most Consecutive All-Star Appearances at the Beginning of Career

Take a look at this chart. This is a list of the most consecutive All-Star appearances at the start of a player’s MLB career (the first year being defined as each player’s official rookie season):

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The names that are missing are startling. So many of the game’s all-time greats did not make the All-Star team in their official rookie campaigns. On this list, only Joe DiMaggio was an All-Star in every season of his career. (Oliva’s teammate Rod Carew made it every year of his career until his final campaign in 1985).

When a player is a consistent All-Star throughout the beginning of his career, there’s a natural inclination for fans and writers to feel like they’re watching a future Hall of Famer. When that player’s career is derailed by injury, or he becomes suddenly ineffective, the initial impression remains. Oliva has likely done better on the various Veterans Committees than he did with the BBWAA because his peers remember playing against him, thinking they were watching a Hall of Famer.

Bottom Line: Yes or No on Tony O?

This is a tough one for me, and now that he’s a Hall of Famer, it really doesn’t matter anymore. But this site is focused on the Hall of Fame debates, and, as previously mentioned, the first version of this piece was written a year and a half ago.

As I noted earlier, I never saw Tony Oliva play. All I have to go by are the numbers. It’s pretty clear that his career statistics fall short. His candidacy is based solely on those eight years of dominance. Was he one of the two best players in Major League Baseball for those eight years? I have a hard time saying “yes.” He had fewer RBI than Frank Howard and Boog Powell. His OBP was lower than Ron Hunt’s or Don Buford’s.

Of course, when Oliva played, nobody talked about on-base percentage. Batting average was king. He was a notoriously good bad-ball hitter; his .313 BA from 1964-71 was 20 points higher than the second-highest in the American League (Carl Yastrzemski hit .293).

Oliva was a runner-up twice for the MVP, finished in the top 10 five times, and was in the top 20 in every year of his eight-year peak. Oliva’s teammate and fellow 2022 Hall of Fame inductee (Jim Kaat) summed that up long ago.

“If league dominance means anything, there’s no question he (Oliva) should be in.”

— Jim Kaat (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 14th, 1991)

Kaat specifically mentioned “league dominance” in his one-sentence argument for Oliva for Cooperstown. Besides batting average, from 1964-71, Oliva led the A.L. in Hits, Extra Base Hits, and Total Bases. He was 2nd in Runs Scored (to Yaz) and fourth in RBI (to Killebrew, Powell, and Brooks Robinson).

Ultimately, while I don’t think Oliva had a Hall of Fame-worthy career, the majority of his peers have thought so. If a consistent majority of people who played with him think he’s a Hall of Famer, that’s meaningful.

What does a Tony Oliva Hall of Fame Plaque Means for Others?

When it comes to the Hall of Fame, one of the sometimes ugly side effects of our social media-fueled society is that when a borderline candidate gets a plaque in Cooperstown, Twitter lights up with “if X then Y” comparisons. When Harold Baines was unexpectedly elected to the Hall three years ago, there were numerous articles and Twitter posts calling him “unworthy,” saying that his election was “lowering the Hall’s standards.” Countless people argued, “if Baines is in, then _____ should be in too.”

That’s an understandable reaction, but I don’t fully agree with it. Sometimes there are circumstances in a player’s career that transcend sabermetrics. The Eras Committee that voted Baines into the Hall noted that, if not for two player strikes, he might have passed 3,000 hits. They didn’t care that his WAR was 38.7 and his OPS+ was only 121. I made the point that the Baines selection should be factored in if you could find other players who were denied traditional Hall of Fame milestones due to work stoppages. This may happen in the future when voters grapple with the 60-game season during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. You can’t just open the gates to every player with a superior WAR or OPS+. Every case is different.

On the Baines standard, Oliva belongs in the Hall. Period. But so do 100 other players. The cases in favor are completely different. Baines’ was a longevity case, Oliva’s a peak case.

As an empathetic human being, I am delighted that Oliva got the 12 votes he needed last December and finally achieved baseball immortality today. The man had too many “Charlie Brown/Lucy with the football” moments. He was teased and tortured too many times. I say “yes” based on the majority of his peers having voted in favor so many times.

However, now that Tony Oliva is a Hall of Famer, I think it will be fair to use his election as a point in favor of other players who had brilliant peaks but also had careers shortened by injuries. Among 21st century players, I think about another star for the Twins, pitcher Johan Santana. I think about David Wright of the Mets. I think about Boston’s Dustin Pedroia, who retired in 2020.

The Hall of Fame has a massive disparity in terms of players inducted from the first half of the 20th century compared to inductees from the second half of the century. Putting Oliva in the Hall of Fame continues to move Cooperstown toward a more generally balanced Hall. I’m in favor of that, and I’m thrilled for Tony.

Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on Twitter @cooperstowncred.

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