USA TODAY International Edition
Hoffman was West Coast’s Rivera
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. – 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 on Sunday.
“I may introduce myself,” said Hoffman, who had 601 saves, second in history to Rivera’s 652, “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 Padres 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 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 Padres and Hoffman jerseys. San Diego is 2,829 miles away, 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, everyone from Brad Ausmus to Mark Loretta to Archi Cianfrocco, but his former manager, Bruce Bochy, now with the 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, he also was 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.
Hoffman stood up and gave a speech to his teammates after the game, retired to the trainer’s room and sat 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 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 now deceased Kevin Towers, the Padres’ former general manager.
Towers, like most in baseball, was superstitious. When Hoffman came into games to protect a lead in the ninth inning, Towers would always duck out, believing he was bad luck.
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.”
Certainly, he came a long way from being a minor league shortstop with the Reds, to be traded in 1993 from the Marlins to the Padres for slugger Gary Sheffield, to be the third Padres player in history to be elected into the Hall of Fame, joining Dave Winfield and Tony Gwynn.
“I grew up watching him with the Padres and Mariano with the Yankees,” Dodgers All-Star closer Kenley Jansen says. “It’s amazing what he did. I definitely admired him and wanted to be just like him. He’s what we all want to become.”
On Sunday, finally, the country will have a chance to know him.