Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton, Joe Mauer elected to Baseball Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame is made for players like Adrián Beltré. As a pure hitter, reliable slugger and slick third baseman, Beltré had few peers: No other infielder in the history of baseball has 3,000 hits, 400 homers and five Gold Glove awards. Beltré, now 44, was a lock for the Hall of Fame.

As a first-time Cooperstown candidate, Beltré did not need to follow the breathless tracking of public ballots this winter. Yet he still could not feel secure, he said, until his wife and son assured him on Tuesday that election day looked promising. He could savor it.

“That made me relax a little bit more, and I kind of forced myself to try to enjoy this moment,” Beltré said from his home in Southern California, moments after achieving his sport’s greatest honor. “It was going to be a nice moment, and probably the last moment in baseball that I was going to accomplish, being at the pinnacle of the game.”

Beltré had company at the summit on Tuesday, with Todd Helton and Joe Mauer joining him in the new class of Hall of Famers. Former manager Jim Leyland, elected by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee last month, will also be inducted at the ceremony July 21.

Candidates must receive 75 percent of the ballots from 10-year members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, and Beltré was the runaway leader on Tuesday with 95.1 percent (366 of 385) in his first appearance on the ballot. Helton got there in his sixth attempt, with 79.7 percent, and Mauer debuted at 76.1 percent, making it with four votes to spare.

If some writers seem stingy with their votes now, consider that even Yogi Berra — 10-time champion, three-time Most Valuable Player, American icon — missed the Hall by 28 votes in his first appearance in 1971. Mauer, incredibly, is only the third catcher to reach Cooperstown on the first ballot, after Johnny Bench and Iván Rodríguez.

“It’s an unbelievable honor — one, to join the group, and two, to join that group,” Mauer said. “I don’t think it’s fully sunk in, to be honest. There’s so many great catchers in the Hall of Fame; to think of some off the top of my head – Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella. It’s not lost on me.”

Billy Wagner, who had 422 career saves, missed on Tuesday by five votes, garnering 73.8 percent in his ninth try. Wagner will have one more year to be considered by the writers, but Gary Sheffield’s decade on the ballot ended with a 63.9 percent showing. Sheffield, who had 509 home runs, could ultimately be elected by an eras committee.

Beltré, Helton and Mauer were three of the most accomplished hitters of their generation, Beltré with the most hits and homers (3,166 and 477) of the trio and the others with four batting titles between them.

Mauer, who played all of his 15 seasons with his hometown Minnesota Twins, is the only MLB catcher to win three batting crowns, leading the American League in 2006, 2008 and 2009, when he was also its MVP.

Concussions forced Mauer, now 40, to first base in 2014. But from his 2004 rookie season through 2013, Mauer hit .323/.405/.469, and sounded grateful that voters focused on his decade of dominance behind the plate.

“The last few years is probably not that peak, or the way you want to remember a player,” Mauer said. “For me, I was able to catch my first 10 years and I feel like that’s who I am as a baseball player, is a catcher. I’m thankful to have continued my career at first base, but I felt like we were the best version of the Minnesota Twins when I was a catcher.”

Helton, who spent his entire 17-year career with the Colorado Rockies, won his batting title with a major league-best .372 average in 2000. Now 50, Helton reflected on a lesson from his father, Jerry, who played in the minors with the Twins.

“When I would go 1-for-3, that’s a bad day when you’re young, and he’d say, ‘One for three gets you in the Hall of Fame,’” Helton said. “He was tough on me, but he did say things like that that helped me. I knew about the Hall of Fame when I was 8 years old.”

Helton didn’t quite hit .333 for his career. But among players whose careers began after 1930, only Stan Musial and Ted Williams can match him in all of these critical categories: batting average (.316), on-base percentage (.414) and slugging percentage (.539).

Helton made no apologies for thriving at Coors Field, where he hit .345/.441/.607. He was excellent on the road, too (.287/.386/.469) and explained that playing at high altitude also takes a toll.

“I’m not embarrassed or anything about my home and road numbers,” he said. “Going on the road after hitting in Colorado is hard. The ball breaks more. It’s a huge adjustment, going through that rigorous grind of being able to make those changes midseason. It is a good place to hit, but there are some drawbacks.”

Besides, he could have noted, plenty of other Hall of Famers have benefitted from a home park that suited their skills. Sandy Koufax had a 1.37 ERA at Dodger Stadium and a 3.38 mark everywhere else. Wade Boggs batted .369 at Fenway Park and .306 away from Boston. Then there’s Chuck Klein: .395 at the old Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, and .277 elsewhere.

The gaudiest numbers on this ballot belonged to Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, who both served suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs. The two combined for more than 1,250 home runs — but even their combined vote totals would not get them to Cooperstown.

The Hall of Fame asks voters to consider candidates’ “integrity, sportsmanship (and) character” — as well as their playing record — which explains why Rodriguez amassed just 34.8 percent of the vote in his third try, and Ramirez only 32.5 percent in his eighth. 

Andruw Jones and Carlos Beltrán, meanwhile, continued their upward climbs. Jones, a 10-time Gold Glove center fielder with 434 home runs, moved to 61.6 percent in his seventh year. Beltrán, whose 70.1 bWAR trailed only Rodriguez and Beltré on this ballot, reached 57.1 percent in his second year but has likely been held back by his role in the Astros’ illegal sign-stealing scheme in 2017.

Besides Beltré and Mauer, the top-polling newcomer to the ballot was Chase Utley, a six-time All-Star second baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. Utley got 28.8 percent of the vote on Tuesday, more than Jimmy Rollins, his longtime double-play partner, who had 14.8 percent in his third try.

Newcomers in next year’s field include two former MVP winners, Ichiro Suzuki and Dustin Pedroia, and two former Cy Young Award winners, CC Sabathia and Félix Hernández. That ballot will include 14 holdovers who received at least 5 percent on Tuesday.

One of those players is David Wright (6.2 percent), whose dynamic career was cut short by spinal stenosis. Even so, Wright stands as the New York Mets’ career hits leader, as Rollins is for the Phillies and Helton for the Rockies.

One of those players, like Beltré and Mauer, got the call of a lifetime on Tuesday. As Helton spoke about it, he sounded awestruck as he grasped his new reality.

 “Everything I’ve done, it really did happen,” he said. “And it was good enough to make it to the Hall of Fame.”

Required reading

(Photo of Adrián Beltré and Joe Mauer in 2018: Brace Hemmelgarn / Minnesota Twins / Getty Images)