Two first-ballot selections are part of Sunday's induction class at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
This year’s Hall of Famers are Dick Allen, Billy Wagner, Dave Parker, plus first-ballot selections Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia.
Sabathia, a southpaw great for Cleveland, Milwaukee and the Yankees, won the 2007 Cy Young Award. He spent 19 years in the bigs and was a six-time all-star.
Sabathia was the staff ace when the Yankees won the 2009 World Series over the Phillies.
“The one thing that I remember from ‘09 is that it just felt like we were gonna win every night, you know, we had so many walkoffs and so many comebacks, and it was just a lot of fun to be around,” he said. “And you just got the sense by August that that we had a pretty good chance to win the World Series. So it was it was a lot of fun that year. I mean, that was probably the best team I've ever been on my career, and as far as closeness, too. It was very enjoyable to be on that team. And, you know, to win here in New York, the first year of the stadium, was incredible.”
He spoke with WAMC in 2020 about being enshrined someday.
“I would love to be able to go into Cooperstown. I mean, obviously a kid like myself from the inner city of Vallejo to be able to go into Cooperstown. This is obviously a dream. I mean, I never even played or could dream about going to Cooperstown. It was just always, you know, trying to make my next start. When I was early, when I was younger, not get sent down. And to be able to sit here now and you know, have people consider my career a Hall of Fame career. I mean, that's, that's just an accomplishment in itself. So that's a blessing.”
Ichiro Suzuki was one vote shy of an unanimous induction and is the first Japanese player elected. He won the Rookie of the Year and MVP in 2001 at age 27 and stayed in the majors until he was 45. He finished with 3,089 hits in the majors alone, starring for Seattle, Miami and the Yankees.
Allen and Parker were selected by the Classic Baseball Era Committee. Parker was a three-time Gold Glover and two-time batting champion who won the World Series in 1979 and 1989.
Parker, who suffered from Parkinson’s, died in June at age 74. The first athlete to earn a million dollars a year, Parker spoke with WAMC in 2021.
“Well, we played hard. And we had a theory on hitting first pitch fastball," he said. "You know, we're looking for the first pitch fastball, because we had a theory that the pitcher tried to get ahead with his first pitch and the fastball is the ball that he can control, more so than any other pitch he had.”
Allen died in 2020. Over 15 seasons, mainly with the Phillies, he was the 1972 MVP and a seven-time all-star.
Billy Wagner will become just the ninth relief pitcher in Cooperstown. Pitching for the Astros, Phillies, Mets, Red Sox and Braves, Wagner notched 442 saves with a 2.31 earned run average.
The ceremony begins at 1:30 p.m.
