Due to his achievements as a player and manager, as well as his sterling character, Gil Hodges deserves to be in the Hall of Fame as much as any player honored by the institution. A towering figure during the Golden Era of the 1950s, Hodges was the Brooklyn Dodgers’ powerful first baseman who, alongside Jackie Robinson, helped drive his team to six pennants and a thrilling World Series victory in 1955.
Dutifully following the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1958, Hodges longed to return to New York City, and in 1962, joined the original Mets. He took over the manager’s spot on their bench in 1968 and transformed the team from a joke to World Champions in 1969—the Miracle Mets. Yet behind his stoic demeanor lay a man prone to anxiety and scarred by combat during World War II. His sudden death in 1972 shocked his friends and family and left a void in the hearts of baseball fans everywhere.
Acclaimed authors Tom Clavin and Danny Peary delve into one of baseball’s most overlooked stars, shedding light on a fascinating life and career that even his most ardent fans never knew in their bio of Hodges: Gil Hodges: The Brooklyn Bums, the Miracle Mets, and the Extraordinary Life of a Baseball Legend published in 2012.
At a critical moment in Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables," Inspector Javert bursts into a room where he expects to find the escaped convict Jean Valjean. Instead, he comes upon Sister Simplice, a nun whose distinctive trait is that not once in her life has she told a lie. Such is her reputation that when she tells Javert, falsely, that she is alone and hasn't seen Valjean, the inspector begs her pardon and recedes without a search.
Baseball had its own Sister Simplice moment. It came in the final game of the 1969 World Series between the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles, when Mets batter Cleon Jones claimed that an errant pitch had hit him in the foot before rolling into the New York dugout. To back the claim, Mets manager Gil Hodges brought the ball out to the umpire and showed him a mark made by shoe polish. Mr. Jones was awarded first base and would score on a home run that would prove the turning point in a victory that gave the Mets their first world championship.
Many years after that event, Mets pitcher Jerry Koosman told an interviewer that he had grabbed the ball when it rolled into the dugout. Hodges, he said, told him to rub it against his shoe—hence the polish. Even so, there are those who believe the mere suggestion to be blasphemous. They include Cleon Jones, who has said: "You've got to know the type of individual Gil Hodges was. There was no way Gil Hodges would ever do anything dishonest."
For sportswriters Tom Clavin and Danny Peary—the authors of "Gil Hodges: The Brooklyn Bums, the Miracle Mets, and the Extraordinary Life of a Baseball Legend"—their subject's sterling character presents its own challenges. It's as if someone writing an authoritative biography of George Washington were to find that all the old chestnuts were true: the cherry tree, the silver dollar thrown across the Potomac, the kneeling to pray in the snow of Valley Forge. In Hodges's case, even his failings—the authors fault him for smoking too much, for keeping his feelings bottled up, for not talking about his combat experience as a Marine in World War II—speak to a certain ideal of manliness.
Over his career Hodges touched two different generations of fans. The first were Brooklynites of the 1950s, who adopted the quiet Hoosier as one of their own. These were people like my mother, a long-ago Brooklyn resident who remembers when Hodges hit four homers in a single game on her birthday.
Even when Hodges went hitless against the Yanks in the '52 Series, the Dodger fans cheered him. When the batting slump continued into the next season, his struggles prompted a famous bid for divine intervention. On a steamy Sunday in 1953, a priest at Brooklyn's St. Francis Xavier told his congregation: "It's too hot for a sermon today. Go home, keep the commandments and say a prayer for Gil Hodges."
There was also history. When Jackie Robinson was called up in 1947, Hodges not only refused to sign a petition by white Dodgers saying that they would not take the field with a black teammate; he also later barnstormed through the South on a team that Robinson managed. In Birmingham, Ala., authorities threatened to arrest any white player who violated a local ordinance against integrated athletics. In this case, Robinson chose to avoid confrontation by sitting his four white players, including Hodges, in the stands. (Messrs. Clavin and Peary say that the move provoked an op-ed in the Chicago Defender, a leading black newspaper, headlined: "Jackie Disgraces the Race.")
Hodges's second act would come as a manager, first with the Washington Senators and then with the New York Mets. In his second season with the Mets—the same year that America put a man on the moon—Hodges took a team regarded as clowns all the way to the top. When his wife caught up with him in the locker room, the authors say, he told her that bringing the title back to New York was his way of thanking "the people of Brooklyn who gave him standing ovations when he went 0 for 21 in the 1952 World Series."
Not that there weren't bumps along the way. This was 1969, after all, the era of Vietnam and Woodstock and not trusting anyone over 30. Still, the Greatest Generation had a few lessons for the Age of Aquarius. Once, when Mets outfielder Ron Swoboda showed up on the team bus wearing a casual shirt and beads, Hodges called him outside. A half-hour later, Mr. Swoboda reappeared in suit and tie.
For today's baseball fans, alas, Hodges is the nice guy who cannot get into the Hall of Fame. For an institution that professes to base admission on criteria that include "integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team," it is a puzzling omission. In his day, Hodges was the friend Jackie Robinson could count on when he needed it, the father figure who taught the Mets the meaning of professionalism when they needed it, and the Marine who landed at Okinawa when his country needed it.
The authors make a good case on the numbers too. Though his stats show no dominance in any one category, when Hodges retired he was the National League's right-handed home-run king with 370; he held the NL record for career grand slams; he had played in eight All-Star games; and he had won three Gold Gloves. As for the 1969 triumph, Messrs. Clavin and Peary put it this way: "Never before or after has a team won a world championship primarily because of its manager."
In the years since the Easter Sunday heart attack that robbed us of this good man at age 47, most of the Dodgers from Ebbets Field have followed him into eternity. The children who thrilled to his Mets in 1969 now comb gray hair. And everywhere but Cooperstown, Gil Hodges is recognized as a true American hero.
Put GIl Hodges into The Hall Of Fame.
Dutifully following the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1958, Hodges longed to return to New York City, and in 1962, joined the original Mets. He took over the manager’s spot on their bench in 1968 and transformed the team from a joke to World Champions in 1969—the Miracle Mets. Yet behind his stoic demeanor lay a man prone to anxiety and scarred by combat during World War II. His sudden death in 1972 shocked his friends and family and left a void in the hearts of baseball fans everywhere.
Acclaimed authors Tom Clavin and Danny Peary delve into one of baseball’s most overlooked stars, shedding light on a fascinating life and career that even his most ardent fans never knew in their bio of Hodges: Gil Hodges: The Brooklyn Bums, the Miracle Mets, and the Extraordinary Life of a Baseball Legend published in 2012.
At a critical moment in Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables," Inspector Javert bursts into a room where he expects to find the escaped convict Jean Valjean. Instead, he comes upon Sister Simplice, a nun whose distinctive trait is that not once in her life has she told a lie. Such is her reputation that when she tells Javert, falsely, that she is alone and hasn't seen Valjean, the inspector begs her pardon and recedes without a search.
Baseball had its own Sister Simplice moment. It came in the final game of the 1969 World Series between the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles, when Mets batter Cleon Jones claimed that an errant pitch had hit him in the foot before rolling into the New York dugout. To back the claim, Mets manager Gil Hodges brought the ball out to the umpire and showed him a mark made by shoe polish. Mr. Jones was awarded first base and would score on a home run that would prove the turning point in a victory that gave the Mets their first world championship.
Many years after that event, Mets pitcher Jerry Koosman told an interviewer that he had grabbed the ball when it rolled into the dugout. Hodges, he said, told him to rub it against his shoe—hence the polish. Even so, there are those who believe the mere suggestion to be blasphemous. They include Cleon Jones, who has said: "You've got to know the type of individual Gil Hodges was. There was no way Gil Hodges would ever do anything dishonest."
For sportswriters Tom Clavin and Danny Peary—the authors of "Gil Hodges: The Brooklyn Bums, the Miracle Mets, and the Extraordinary Life of a Baseball Legend"—their subject's sterling character presents its own challenges. It's as if someone writing an authoritative biography of George Washington were to find that all the old chestnuts were true: the cherry tree, the silver dollar thrown across the Potomac, the kneeling to pray in the snow of Valley Forge. In Hodges's case, even his failings—the authors fault him for smoking too much, for keeping his feelings bottled up, for not talking about his combat experience as a Marine in World War II—speak to a certain ideal of manliness.
Over his career Hodges touched two different generations of fans. The first were Brooklynites of the 1950s, who adopted the quiet Hoosier as one of their own. These were people like my mother, a long-ago Brooklyn resident who remembers when Hodges hit four homers in a single game on her birthday.
Even when Hodges went hitless against the Yanks in the '52 Series, the Dodger fans cheered him. When the batting slump continued into the next season, his struggles prompted a famous bid for divine intervention. On a steamy Sunday in 1953, a priest at Brooklyn's St. Francis Xavier told his congregation: "It's too hot for a sermon today. Go home, keep the commandments and say a prayer for Gil Hodges."
There was also history. When Jackie Robinson was called up in 1947, Hodges not only refused to sign a petition by white Dodgers saying that they would not take the field with a black teammate; he also later barnstormed through the South on a team that Robinson managed. In Birmingham, Ala., authorities threatened to arrest any white player who violated a local ordinance against integrated athletics. In this case, Robinson chose to avoid confrontation by sitting his four white players, including Hodges, in the stands. (Messrs. Clavin and Peary say that the move provoked an op-ed in the Chicago Defender, a leading black newspaper, headlined: "Jackie Disgraces the Race.")
Hodges's second act would come as a manager, first with the Washington Senators and then with the New York Mets. In his second season with the Mets—the same year that America put a man on the moon—Hodges took a team regarded as clowns all the way to the top. When his wife caught up with him in the locker room, the authors say, he told her that bringing the title back to New York was his way of thanking "the people of Brooklyn who gave him standing ovations when he went 0 for 21 in the 1952 World Series."
Not that there weren't bumps along the way. This was 1969, after all, the era of Vietnam and Woodstock and not trusting anyone over 30. Still, the Greatest Generation had a few lessons for the Age of Aquarius. Once, when Mets outfielder Ron Swoboda showed up on the team bus wearing a casual shirt and beads, Hodges called him outside. A half-hour later, Mr. Swoboda reappeared in suit and tie.
For today's baseball fans, alas, Hodges is the nice guy who cannot get into the Hall of Fame. For an institution that professes to base admission on criteria that include "integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team," it is a puzzling omission. In his day, Hodges was the friend Jackie Robinson could count on when he needed it, the father figure who taught the Mets the meaning of professionalism when they needed it, and the Marine who landed at Okinawa when his country needed it.
The authors make a good case on the numbers too. Though his stats show no dominance in any one category, when Hodges retired he was the National League's right-handed home-run king with 370; he held the NL record for career grand slams; he had played in eight All-Star games; and he had won three Gold Gloves. As for the 1969 triumph, Messrs. Clavin and Peary put it this way: "Never before or after has a team won a world championship primarily because of its manager."
In the years since the Easter Sunday heart attack that robbed us of this good man at age 47, most of the Dodgers from Ebbets Field have followed him into eternity. The children who thrilled to his Mets in 1969 now comb gray hair. And everywhere but Cooperstown, Gil Hodges is recognized as a true American hero.
Put GIl Hodges into The Hall Of Fame.