Allentown Morning Call - August 3, 1980

Kaline, Snider head Hall inductees

By Barry Wilner, AP Sports Writer

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. (AP) – Things always seemed to come easy for Al Kaline. He never played a day in the minor leagues. At 21, he became the youngest batting champion in American League history. He performed as if born to hit and field.

And now he has made the Baseball Hall of Fame on his first try. 

In contrast, there is Duke Snider, who also entered baseball's shrine today. It took Snider 11 years to make the Hall, even though he was just as accomplished a ballplayer as Kaline. 

Although both Kaline and Snider made the game look ever so simple, neither found it all that automatic. 

"Baseball was never easy for me," said Kaline, the star right fielder of the Detroit Tigers for 22 seasons. "Everybody thought I was a natural but they just didn't know. They didn't know about the nights I'd take a bat through the lobby and swing it in front of a mirror to find out what I was doing wrong. 

"I wasn't as good a player as I wished I'd been," he added. "I strived to be the best but I fell short." 

If so, he didn't fail by much – Kaline 's credentials rival almost anyone's. 

Kaline had a .297 lifetime average with 3,007 hits and 399 home runs. In 1955, he won the AL batting championship with a .340 average, making him the youngest – by one day over Ty Cobb – ever to capture the league title. 

So impressive was Kaline as an all-around player – he was as good in the field as at bat – that he was named on 340 of 385 ballots by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Only nine other players – Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Bob Feller, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, Ernie Banks, Warren Spahn and Mickey Mantle – were inducted in their first year of eligibility, which comes five years after retirement. 

"When you realize only nine other players have ever gone in on the first ballot," he said, "it makes it more meaningful. Sometimes I question my right to be in that company." 

Snider must have been wondering if he ever would get to Cooperstown.

"I'd been sweating it for 11 years," said the onetime star center fielder with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. "I was worried if I didn't make it this year I never would make it. 

"Sometimes, there's a leveling off for a guy after some years and he doesn't make it. My votes kept going up each year and I was only 16 votes shy the year before, so I wondered if I didn't make it this year if that would happen to me." 

With 407 home runs, including five straight seasons with 40 or more homers, a .295 career average, and 11 World Series homers, a National League record, it's a wonder it took so long for "The Duke of Flatbush" to be recognized by the BBWAA voters. 

As if those numbers weren't enough, Snider was the consummate outfielder, as steady afield as contemporaries Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle when the three dominated the position in New York – and the majors – through the 1950s. 

"That was a lot of fun, reading everyday about who was better, hearing the fans argue about Mickey and Willie and myself," he recalled. "We used to kid about it when we saw each other. 

"One guy would say, 'I've got you by five RBI,' and the other would answer, 'I've got you by 10 percentage points." 

But, even though he warranted comparisons with Mantle and Mays, it wasn't that easy for Snider either.

"I'd like to be remembered as a complete ballplayer and a hard worker," noted Snider. "I'd like kids to know how hard you have to work to make it to the major leagues." 

And to the Hall of Fame. Snider feels he might have gotten in sooner if not for a mid-career injury. 

"I had my sights set at 500 homers and 3,000 hits," he said, "but I had knee surgery at 31. Otherwise, I would have gotten there. 

"I didn't have the numbers some of the others did." 

Snider and Kaline each work as sportscasters, the Duke for the Montreal Expos and Kaline for, naturally, the Tigers. In a sense, they are accompanied by a cohort into the Hall – the late Russ Hodges. 

Hodges receives the Ford C. Frick Award for baseball broadcasting. Hodges, who died in 1971, is best remembered for his call "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant... "when Bobby Thomas hit his "Shot Heard 'Round the World," a pennant-winning home run for the New York Giants in a 1951 playoff game against the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

'The 18-man Veterans Committee chose National League slugger Chuck Klein and Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey, both of whom were honored posthumously.

Klein spent 17 years as one of the game's finest power hitters, playing for the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates. In 1932 he was the NL's Most Valuable Player and, in 1933, won the Triple Crown. In 1930, he drove in 170 runs yet finished second to Hack Wilson, who knocked in a record 190. 

Klein also led or tied for the NL crown in homers in 1929, '31 and '32, in RBI in '31. in runs-scored in 1930-32 in hits in 1932-33.

He died in 1958. 

Yawkey, one of the old-line baseball owners who treated his charges like family, bought the Red Sox in 1933 for $1 million. He rebuilt Fenway Park, still the team's home. 

The Red Sox won pennants for Yawkey in 1946. '67 and '75 but lost the World Series each time in seven games. He died in 1976. 

Also being honored with the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for outstanding reportage by a baseball writer are Bob Broeg of St. Louis and the late Tommy Holmes of New York.