Taking a star turn
Auriemma admiringly watched Bird earn her fame
Sue Bird was featured in an American Express commercial back in 2003, wearing her Seattle Storm uniform and skipping through a deli crowd as if being introduced at a basketball game, toward a clerk who had called out “Number ten … Number ten!”
This grainy hoot, accessible on YouTube, was a little push toward mainstream fame for Bird, who had helped the UConn women’s basketball team to national championships in 2000 and 2002 before becoming the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft.
All these years later, Bird is coming down the stretch of her final season, about to retire as one of the most successful players and influential women in basketball history, doing so from a platform that she not only skipped and dribbled and high-fived across, but one she essentially built.
“The WNBA didn’t really have the mechanism to take advantage of kids like her,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “You see a kid coming out now, kids that are not even a third of the player that Sue was, and it’s like a visiting dignitary from another country, the way they treat these kids during the draft. And then the promotion machine goes into effect trying to build them up, and sometimes it’s warranted, sometimes it’s not. But I remember thinking that the WNBA wasn’t really equipped to take some of their big-name stars and make them household names. That’s had to happen gradually for her.”
Bird, 41, will play her final game in Connecticut on Thursday, when the Storm visit the Sun at Mohegan Sun Arena, and the Greenwich resident has, indeed, become over time among the most prominent faces of the sport.
The entirety of her career success, coinciding with the rise in popularity of women’s basketball and the visibility of the WNBA, has been well documented and appropriately celebrated in recent years — because brick by brick or trophy by trophy, the soft-spoken kid from the Long Island hamlet of Syosset made so many statements over the years the way statements really should be made.
She won a New York high school state championship at Christ The
played in more than a dozen leagues.
It’s a class with three Latino players and two Black players who helped pave the way for today’s stars, and three players with ties to the Twins.
Minnesota holds a special place in Ortiz’s heart because of the friendship he developed with Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett — No. 34 just like Big Papi — before Ortiz was dealt to the Red Sox after six seasons.
“That was my guy,” said Ortiz, who survived a nightclub shooting three years ago in his native Dominican Republic.
Kaat’s journey to Cooperstown is rather remarkable. He was 1-4 in 1958 playing for Missoula of the Pioneer League, and he figured he was one start from being sent home. Player-manager Jack McKeon gave Kaat a place in the rotation every fourth day, and he finished the season 16-9.
“I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about pitching,” said the 83-year-old Kaat, who grew up in Zeeland, Michigan. “I feel badly for the pitchers today because that’s where you get your foundation.”
Using finesse instead of power, the 6-foot-4 lefthander pitched for 25 years before retiring in 1983 with 283 wins and 17 saves in stints with six teams. The last was St. Louis, and when the Cardinals won the 1982 World Series, Kaat became the only professional athlete in any of the major sports to play 24 seasons before getting a championship ring.
“It’s hard to let it sink in, but it’s pretty humbling (to be elected to the Hall of Fame),” said Kaat, who didn’t play organized baseball until he was 15. “I’m always thankful that I had a durable body and that I could last a while. I wanted to play this game as long as I could.”
Oliva, a native of Cuba, was on the powerhouse Twins teams in the 1960s with Kaat. The lefty-swinging Oliva spent his entire 15-year career with the Twins. He was the American League Rookie of the Year in 1964. He led the league in hits five times and became the first player in major league history to win batting titles in each of his first two seasons, finishing with a lifetime average of .304.
“It will be special to be able to go with Jim Kaat into the Hall of Fame after over 60 years we know each other,” said Oliva, also 83. “I never think I go into the Hall of Fame. As a kid, I was thinking maybe I could play baseball in Cuba if somebody give me the opportunity. I just wanted to play the game.”
Oliva got his chance in part because of Minoso, the Cuban Comet.
He grew up on a sugar plantation and played ball on weekends. He was a star with the New York Cubans in the Negro Leagues from 1946-48 before debuting with Cleveland in 1949, becoming the first Black Latino player in the major leagues, two years after Jackie Robinson broke in.
Minoso was a nine-time All-Star, led the league in triples and stolen bases three times each, and finished his career with 2,110 hits and a .299 batting average. He died in 2015.
“Minoso is like the Jackie Robinson of Latino America,” Oliva said. “He was a great ballplayer. He should have been in the Hall of Fame a long time ago. The numbers were there.”
Hodges, a hard-hitting first baseman, had 370 homers and 1,274 RBIs to go with a career .273 batting average in 18 seasons — all but the last two with the Dodgers. He retired in 1963 after two partial seasons with the Mets and five years later was hired to manage the Mets, leading them in 1969 to their improbable World Series victory over the Baltimore Orioles.
Hodges, who was 660753 in nine seasons of managing, died of a heart attack in 1972 at age 47.