I can remember the exact day that I knew that Roberto Alomar belonged in the Hall of Fame.
Two decades ago, when Oakland was on the top of the baseball world and mentioning the words “strike” and “baseball” in the same sentence brought the quick reply of “1981!”, Toronto and Oakland were vying for their ticket to the World Series. At the time, Toronto was good, but they seem to run out of luck once the playoffs arrived. In Game Four, after climbing out of a hole that Jack Morris had dug for them in the third inning, they would face the game ender for the A’s in Dennis Eckersley in the ninth inning. At the time having ‘Eck’ in the game meant you might as well go home, and with the Blue Jays behind 6-4, it looked like that was going to happen again for Blue Jay fans.
And then….
“And a drive hit to right field…Sierra going back….looking up….and this game is tied!” *
Like a hollywood script for a typical blockbuster movie, Alomar would blast away this mental roadblock with a two run blast that would tie the game. Two innings later, the Blue Jays have a 3-1 series lead, Alomar has the series MVP, and I knew that Alomar was going to be great.
And today, many of the folks in the BBWA seem to agree with me with his election to the hallowed halls in Cooperstown today. Along with sabermetrics poster child Bert Blyleven finally getting his due, Roberto joins such illustrious second baggers as Eddie Collins, Rod Carew, Rogers Hornsby and Ryne Sandberg; which for those that follow baseball isn’t bad company to be associated with. And unlike other players that have went into the Hall with Canadian teams (like say, Andre Dawson) that would rather went in with another cap, Alomar looked forward to being the first Blue Jay representative in Cooperstown.
Unlike elections to the Hall over the last few years, this one isn’t having baseball fans wondering if the voters just picked random names out of a hat (like say…Jim Rice for example). Roberto was known for being an amazing fielder, with ground balls hit to the right side of the infield effectively being outs for any team hitting against him. And for much of the nineties, the Gold Glove for second basemen would be owned by him, be won a record ten times over the course of his career. And with hitting over .300 for his career, knocking in over twenty-seven hundred hits and over four hundred stolen bases, Alomar had a multitude of tools to fall back on to help his team win games. There are even some fans out there that would consider him the greatest second basemen of all time. And while such a statement would label someone that would blurt it as either a brand new fan or one that would fail baseball history 101 (Hornsby, Collins, Carew for starters), that there’s those even in major news outlets that would make such a statement speaks volumes as to his skill on the field.
When the trade that landed him into Toronto occurred, there was a lot of flack because of it. We had just sent fan favourite Tony Fernandez and up-and-comer Fred McGriff for Joe Carter (who was then known as a decent slugger, but years away from the immortal God of Blue Jay nation), and Roberto, who was then the less famous of the Alomar brothers. Who knew in 1989 that the Blue Jays would be acquiring two of the linchpins of their early 90′s powerhouse teams, and that San Diego would trade away another Hall of Famer. I know that I didn’t (at the time I thought it’d be a trade that wouldn’t make much difference), but I’d happily be proven wrong. Starting on that fateful day in 1992.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch some grainy highlights of our first Hall of Famer, and enjoy when I was watching a Hall of Famer in my team’s colours.
* – Amazingly this is the only video clip of this event I could find online, and not even on youtube. Guess youtube doesn’t have everything yet video wise.
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The owner of the Sports Blog Network, Chris tells it exactly as he sees it, be it in the stands, in front of the tv, or on his semi-trusty laptop. And always with a can of trusty Dr. Pepper by his side, and spell-check working overtime. 
I think he is a LOCK for the Hall, but sometimes I think he got a bad rap from the press. His English speaking skills may have hurt him and that whole spitting thing did not look good, enough though the ump insulted his family.
I would have him in first ballot, but I do not think he will get it the first time due to politics of the Hall.
I still think Shoeless and Pete belong……
“I think he is a LOCK for the Hall”
He might have a good chance…you know….since he’s now in the Hall of Fame, which is what the article was about.
Completely deserving of this and one of the all-time Blue Jay greats. Though I was curious as you had mentioned Alomar becomes the first Jay in the hall of fame. Much to my chagrin I discovered that Dave Stieb isn’t in Cooperstown yet, which is a gross miscarriage of justice in my opinion
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