Could Gil Hodges’ Call to the Hall Come Soon

By Jay Horwitz

I hope this ballot is finally the good luck ballot for Gil Hodges. He has so many close calls but he still has not made it in to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Gil is the only player to appear on the ballot on three separate occasions and achieve over 60 percent of the vote and not be elected.

On December 5, in Orlando, FL the Golden Day Era Committee will cast their votes to see who makes it to Cooperstown. A nominee needs to poll 12 out of a possible 16 votes.

In the last few years I think I have spoken to practically every living member of the 1969 Miracle Mets World Championship team and all the players said the same things, We wouldn’t have won the title without Gil.”

“He was ahead of his time,” Ron Swoboda told me. “I never saw him out managed in any game. He just had a sixth sense on what to do.”

His early death at age 47 cut his resume short. All the players said we would have won more World Series championship if he didn’t pass.

You can’t discount the years he lost as a player when he served his country as a Marine in the South Pacific.

A friend of Gil’s told me this story. Gil went to a funeral in Brooklyn one time and he saw the widower of the person who dies walking by herself in the streets. Gil stopped his car and to the woman to her home, which was an hour out of his way. That in a nutshell was Gil Hodges.