December 6 is a date Lou Piniella’s family and friends have circled on their calendars.
Will Piniella receive an early Christmas present and finally get elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum by the Contemporary Era Committee?
The 16 voting committee members will meet in San Diego to cast their votes for the eight candidates up for consideration. Piniella is one of four former managers who will be hoping to receive 75% (12 votes) or better, which would welcome them to the Cooperstown shrine. Dusty Baker, Joe Maddon, and Bruce Bochy round out the former MLB skippers on the ballot.
Back in December 2018, Piniella came up short by one vote by the Today’s Game Era Committee. The same outcome, one vote shy of election to the Hall of Fame, is what Piniella, 83, experienced in December 2023.
“He certainly deserves it. Hopefully, this is the year it happens,” Dave Magadan, Piniella’s cousin, Godson, and longtime former MLB player and coach said during a phone conversation on Tuesday. “(Piniella) is in his 80s, and I’d like for it to happen when he can enjoy the whole celebration of him getting into Cooperstown.”
During his 23-year MLB managerial career with five clubs (Yankees, Reds, Mariners, Cubs, and Devil Rays), Piniella’s rosters won 1,827 games. He skippered the 1990 Cincinnati Reds to a four-game sweep over the Oakland Athletics in the World Series. During his 10 seasons leading the Seattle Mariners, Piniella’s 2001 squad posted an 116-46 record during the regular season.
Magadan, who earned a championship ring as a member of the 1986 New York Mets World Series winner, and then in 2007 as the Boston Red Sox’s hitting coach when they downed the Colorado Rockies in the Fall Classic, believes Piniella’s success as a player also should be taken in account by those voting.
“ Not only what he did as a manager, but he played for a lot of years (18 MLB seasons) and was part of a couple of World Series championships in New York. He also won the American League Rookie of the Year (1969) and hit a career .291. If you take the totality of what he did, (Piniella) was a great player and manager,” Magadan tells.
Along with the four managers on December’s ballot, there are three former executives and one former player – Bill White rounding out the list of candidates. Magadan had history with Bochy and his cousin during his 16 seasons playing for seven clubs. He coached and played for Bochy with the San Diego Padres. In June 1993, Magadan was traded by the Florida Marlins to the Mariners. Cousin Lou was the dugout boss in Seattle.
“It was great," Magadan recalls playing for Piniella. “I heard a lot of stuff about Lou as a manager, mostly positive. He was the kind of manager who didn’t play favorites. He wasn’t afraid to chew somebody out whether it was Junior Griffey, Randy Johnson, or Jay Buhner. But he would lose his cool, and the next day he would put his arm around me. Lou would turn the page and be your best buddy. That was his greatest attribute.”
According to Magadan, Piniella, when the Hall of Fame subject comes up, acts as if it’s meant to happen it will happen. Missing twice by razor-thin margins in recent years for election to the Hall of Fame, for those closest to the former manager, the subject is certainly a point of frustration.
“I certainly don’t want to disparage any of the other people who are eligible, “Magadan says. “Dusty, I’ve always been a huge fan of his. I’m a little biased towards Lou. I think they all should get in.”
The results of the vote will be announced live on MLB Network’s “MLB Tonight” at 8 p.m. EST.Tampa’s Lou Piniella Hoping Third Time’s A Charm with Upcoming Hall of Fame Vote
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