Hoffman was Rivera of the West Coast
He was saving games when most of the country was sleeping.
He was becoming one of the greatest closers in baseball history despite his own general manager refusing to watch him.
He was the West Coast version of Mariano Rivera.
He is Trevor Hoffman, who will be inducted into the hallowed grounds of the National Baseball Hall of Fame this weekend.
“I may introduce myself (Sunday),” said Hoffman, who had 601 career saves, second in history only to Rivera’s 652 saves. “so everybody knows who I am.”
Yet, despite Hoffman’s greatness, when he entered games, most of America was sleeping, considering he wouldn’t appear until about 1 a.m. ET during his home games in San Diego, stroll in with “Hells Bells” blaring over the stadium speakers.
While Rivera was appearing annually in playoffs with the Yankees, winning five World Series rings and pitching in 96 games, Hoffman had only 12 postseason appearances and never won a championship.
Folks across the country were familiar with San Diego’s beautiful weather, gorgeous beaches and famous zoo, but no one really knew about the dude racking up at least 30 saves in 14 of 15 seasons.
“Two-thirds of the country was asleep when I came in,” Hoffman said. “It’s a fact of just geographic situation where we’re at. Sometimes that’s a good situation to lie in the weeds, and people don’t even get the box score the next day, so they don’t even know if I had a bad game or a good game.
“So it worked out OK for me.” Despite the anonymity out East, Hoffman was such a revered treasure and iconic figure in San Diego that thousands of fans have been seen swarming the streets in Cooperstown wearing San Diego Padres and Hoffman jerseys. San Diego is 2,829 miles away from Cooperstown, and yet, the traveling party for Hoffman is the largest in Hall of Fame history, Hall of Fame officials said.
“It means a ton,” Hoffman said. “I can’t begin to tell you how honored I am by the showing of support and community pride. I mean, we’re not close. That’s a pretty good journey. It shows you the support we have in San Diego to make that pilgrimage here and take in baseball and soak in baseball and let the East Coast know the West Coast has some pretty good fans.
“It will be quite the celebration.” Hoffman not only has dozens of former teammates in town, from everyone from Brad Ausmus to Mark Loretta to Archi Cianfrocco, but also his former manager, Bruce Bochy of the San Francisco Giants.
Bochy, who managed Hoffman through most of his career, including their 1998 World Series team, will be the first active manager who’s not a Hall of Famer to leave his team and attend the induction ceremony, according to Hall of Fame researchers.
“I can’t miss it,” Bochy says. “You’re talking about a guy who not only meant everything to the San Diego Padres franchise but exemplifies everything that is great about baseball. He not only was one of the greatest relievers I’ve ever seen, but the greatest clubhouse leader I’ve ever been around.”
Hoffman not only was the heart and soul of the Padres’ franchise after the retirement of Tony Gwynn, but considered the ultimate teammate. He spent his final two years in Milwaukee and the night of Sept. 7, 2010, will resonate forever for his Brewers teammates who witnessed Hoffman become the first player to record 600 saves in his career.
Hoffman stood up and gave a speech to his teammates after the game, retired to the trainer’s room and sat there with trainers, clubhouse attendants and teammates for six hours, kicking back and telling stories and downing a few beers.
“I’ll never forget the night as long as I live,” says Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell, Hoffman’s former teammate in Milwaukee. “It was like a military general speaking. It was incredible. It was the kind of thing that impacts you. The night was all about him, but what he said wasn’t a thing about him.
“Whoever was in that room will remember it forever.”
Said Hoffman: “It was to just be mindful of your place in the game, and be respectful of the people around you, and honor the team you’re playing for. Be more leery of what’s on your chest, that’s on your back. Just have fun in the game.”
“To be able to address them, and open your heart and talk freely, was a special moment.”
It’s too bad most of America missed one of the greatest relievers who ever lived, but then again, so did the late Kevin Towers, the Padres’ former general manager.
Towers, like most in baseball, was superstitious. Hoffman came into games to protect a lead in the ninth inning, Towers would always duck out, believing he was bad luck.
Sitting behind home plate one day in 2006 at Dodger Stadium, Towers told Padres scout Scott Littlefield that they needed to leave, with the Padres leading by four runs. Towers walked into the visiting clubhouse, heard the roar of the Dodgers crowd, asked what happened, and Littlefield told him the Dodgers homered.
“Kevin says, ‘I can’t watch this; I’ve got to hide,”’ Littlefield says. “So there are all of the equipment bags from the Pirates in the hallway, because they were playing the Dodgers next. Kevin starts climbing. And climbing. He climbed all of the way up to the roof, over the side, and I couldn’t even see him.
“We kept hearing the crowd noise. There was homer after homer. Four of them in all. Eventually, we lost the game on a Nomar Garciaparra walk-off.
“Well, Kevin couldn’t believe it. He storms into the clubhouse and was furious. He ran right into (manager) Bruce Bochy and wanted to fire him.”
So here is Hoffman, one of the greatest relievers who ever lived, and his own GM barely saw him pitch.
“It was hysterical,” Hoffman says. “I’m not sure how I even knew that. I just know that at some point, at the end of my run in San Diego, someone told me, ‘You know, KT kind of disappears when you come into games.’ … It cracks me up to this day hearing the stories how he would get stuck in hallways just to avoid watching me.”