After excruciating 25 years, Simmons ready to enter Hall
Ted Simmons had waited more than 25 years to get in the Baseball Hall of Fame, giving up hope more than once along the way. What was one more year?
That’s how the former Milwaukee Brewers catcher viewed it when his induction in Cooperstown, New York, originally scheduled for last summer, was postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ceremony will be held Wednesday, in the usual outdoor setting with fans gathered in a vast field near baseball’s hallowed museum instead of being done virtually, as was once feared.
What was it like to wait another year to join the immortals of the game he played for 21 seasons, including from 1981-85 in Milwaukee?
“The wait has been good and bad,” Simmons said Thursday during a Zoom session with baseball media. “Bad, in that you had to wait an extra year for this thing to come to a head. Good in that it’s extended this an additional year. So, nothing has gone away.
“You walk in and you think you’re going to turn around and walk out. It’s a real pleasure to be able to walk in and stay, really twice as long in the room. Next week, I’ll eventually walk in and walk back out. But it’s been good and bad in that respect.”
The Hall of Famers from whom Simmons has heard since being elected in December 2019 by the Modern Baseball Era Committee all told him basically the same thing: You should have been part of our fraternity long ago. Finally, a slight has been corrected.
A good look at Simmons’ career numbers at the time of his Hall of Fame eligibility in 1994 proved he was among the best catchers of all time in terms of productivity. His 1,389 career RBI were second only to Yogi Berra. His 2,472 hits and 483 doubles were the most for any catcher. The switch-hitter accumulated the sixth-most homers for any catcher in major-league history and his 1,074 runs scored were fourth-most behind Berra, Johnny Bench and Carlton Fisk.
Perhaps not first-ballot worthy of entering Cooperstown but still a candidate who should have been elected eventually by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Yet, after just one year of consideration, Simmons fell off the ballot, failing to draw the necessary 5% of the votes to remain (he garnered 17 out of 456 votes, only 3.7%).
With no other means of election at the time, it appeared the Cooperstown doors would be closed forever on Simmons.
“One and done was fairly Draconian,” said Simmons, who turned 72 in August. “I think people eventually recognized that and moved to rectify it. That was lucky for me and gratefully for me they did alter and change things.”
Looking back at the Hall of Fame election in 1994, one can understand how Simmons might have fallen through the cracks, fair or not. A pair of 300-game winners, Steve Carlton and Don Sutton, a teammate of Simmons’ on the Brewers’ 1982 World Series team, were on the ballot for the first time. So was closer Bruce Sutter, whose 300 saves were third-most in MLB history at the time of his retirement.
Other first-timers on that ballot included Dave Concepcion, Ron Guidry and Graig Nettles. Holdovers from previous years included future inductees Phil Niekro, Tony Perez, Ron Santo and Orlando Cepeda, in his final year of eligibility with the BBWAA. Other candidates included Steve Garvey, Luis Tiant, Joe Torre, Curt Flood, George Foster, Rusty Staub, Dick Allen, Tony Oliva and Jim Kaat.
Pete Rose, kicked out of the game for gambling, received 19 write-in votes, two more than the eligible Simmons. With all those stars on the same ballot, stingy voting by baseball writers resulted in only Carlton being elected. The next year, only Mike Schmidt got in. In 1996, no one received the requisite 75% of votes for entrance to the Hall.
Simmons was resigned to his assumed fate of never being a Hall of Famer until a glimmer of hope surfaced with the expansion of what was known as the Veterans Committee in 2010 to consider broader groups of people from the game. The formats of voting committees would change over time, but Simmons continued to be considered.
In December 2017, the Modern Baseball Eras Committee elected Jack Morris and Alan Trammell, but Simmons fell an agonizing one vote short of the 12 needed for election by the 16-member panel. Getting strong support from former Brewers teammate and Hall of Famer Robin Yount, who was on the 2019 committee, Simmons finally was elected along with players union founder Marvin Miller, who died in 2012.
Simmons and Miller will be inducted with former players Derek Jeter and Larry Walker, who were elected on the BBWAA ballot.
“Over the years, since it first began in 1938 with the initial induction, guys have always been on the cusp, whether it was myself or others,” Simmons said of the election process. “They’ve always said the Hall of Fame is a very difficult place to get into, and that it should be. Over the passage of time, more and more people like myself were out there.
“Now, they (had) a real dilemma. What do they do about it when the comparisons start running wild? Soon, everyone scratches their head and says, ‘Something has to be done about this.’ So, essentially, they expanded the process, so not just the Baseball Writers of America had say.
“The Hall of Fame membership has been really special, ever since this happened to me. They were pulling for me all along and are really glad this finally happened. I’ve known so many of them, and played with and against numerous of them. It truly is a fraternity type thing. Once you’re in, everybody kind of reaches out and extends their hand of welcome.”
The 25 years Simmons had to wait after falling off the ’94 ballot notwithstanding, it’s fitting that he be inducted this year instead of 2020. It’s the 40th anniversary of the Brewers making the postseason for the first time in the split season of 1981 after then-general manager
Harry Dalton put the team over the top with the blockbuster trade with St. Louis that netted starting pitcher Pete Vuckovich, closer Rollie Fingers and Simmons.
Having broken in with the Cardinals in 1968 at age 19, Simmons starred in St. Louis for 13 seasons before the trade to Milwaukee that rejuvenated both his career and the team’s fortunes. But Simmons didn’t hesitate when asked what the biggest difference was in coming to the upper Midwest.
“The weather,” he said with a laugh. “When I left (my hometown of) Detroit and came to St. Louis, I went from absolutely spectacular summers to heat and humidity like I’d never seen before. That Astroturf in St. Louis was just miserable in the summer. Then I went up to Milwaukee and got to play in virtual air conditioning outdoors for the remainder of my career. That was refreshing.”
The Brewers were knocked out in the first round of the revised playoffs in ’81 before breaking through to the World Series the following season. That team had fortitude as well as talent, winning in Baltimore on the final day of the season to claim the AL East crown and overcoming a 0-2 hole to the California Angels in the ALCS before falling one victory short in the Fall Classic to Simmons’ former team in St. Louis.
Had this year’s runaway Brewers team won Thursday in San Francisco to finish off a four-game sweep instead of losing, 5-1, it would have marked only the second season in franchise history they moved 31 games over .500. The ’82 Brewers hit that level twice, first with a 92-61 record and again at 94-63 after a memorable 6-3 win in Boston on Sept. 29.
With the game tied, 3-3, in the ninth inning, backup catcher Ned Yost, who entered the game in the eighth when Simmons was removed for pinch-runner Marshall Edwards, blasted a threerun homer off Red Sox reliever Mark
Clear over the Green Monster to lead the Brewers to a 6-3 victory. Yost would go on to manage the Brewers from 200308, hiring Simmons to be his bench coach in that final season.
That stirring victory gave the Brewers a four-game lead in the AL East with five to play but they proceeded to lose four in a row, including the first three of a four-game series in Baltimore, forcing them to win the finale to claim the division.
“That was a very exciting home run (that Yost) hit,” said Simmons. “Very dramatic. Frankly, with all the wonderful memories that whole season left us with, I’m hoping (the 2021 Brewers) break the record as soon as it can possibly happen in Milwaukee. Records are there to be broken.
“There’s nothing like an NBA championship and a possible Major League Baseball championship in a city like Milwaukee. That would be dramatic and would be just incredible. I hope it happens.”
Known as “Simba” to teammates because of his flowing hair, Simmons was a thinking man’s catcher when he played, a thoughtful, eloquent and erudite person who would hold court in the clubhouse, quizzing teammates about decisions they made at important junctures of games. He absorbed so much knowledge about how the game was played that he went on to a long front office and scouting career after retiring, with teams always seeking to hire him.
With that backdrop, Simmons’ induction speech is certain to be memorable, with much introspection, detail and humor. The one-year pandemic delay provided plenty of extra time to craft his words precisely, but not surprisingly, he didn’t procrastinate during that process.
“I got right after it after I was elected,” he said. “I said, ‘I’m not going to let this sit out there and angst over this for the next however long. I’m going to get right after it.’ Which I did, and in a fairly short period of time I was confident I was going to get to say what I wanted to say.
“They’ve given us fairly liberal instructions, somewhere between eight and 10, and possibly 12 minutes. With that kind of help, I was able to condense most of my thoughts into essential things I felt were necessary to say. I’ve been at it for quite a while at this point. I’m glad I’m reading it because I don’t trust myself with that kind of effort, especially at my age. I’ve got it to the point now where I shouldn’t mess this up.
“I’ve got a few things I want to say. I’m going to get them out there and it should be over and done, so people won’t end up staring back at me with giant yawns. I don’t want that to happen, and as a matter of fact, I won’t let that happen.”
Anyone who’s ever engaged Simmons in conversation will tell you there’s zero chance of boredom when he steps to the microphone Wednesday, better late than never.