Predictions come true for Hall of Fame

by Ben Walker
The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Dave Winfield and Kirby Puckett were elected yesterday to the Hall of Fame on their first try, becoming the seventh pair of teammates picked by baseball writers in the same year.

Winfield, who had 3,110 hits and 465 home runs, and Puckett, whose All-Star career was cut short by glaucoma, played together on the Minnesota Twins in 1993-94.

In fact, Winfield's 3,000th hit drove in Puckett.

"We've already talked, and we congratulated each other," Puckett said from the Metrodome. "It will be very, very special going in with him."

While the personable Puckett spent his entire career with the Twins, the strapping Winfield played for six teams, mostly with the New York Yankees and San Diego Padres.

So, which cap will Winfield wear on his Hall plaque?

"I can't tell you because I haven't thought about it yet," he said from his home in the Los Angeles area. "I didn't want to be presumptuous.

"The hat I'm wearing is the Hall of Fame hat today," he said. "My hat's off to all the teams that gave me the opportunity to do my thing."

Winfield was listed on 84.5 percent of the ballots, and Puckett was chosen on 82.1 percent in voting by 10-year members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. It took 75 percent for election.

The outfielders brought to 36 the number of players elected in their first year of eligibility. There are 251 overall members in the Hall.

Gary Carter finished third with 64.9 percent, followed by Jim Rice (57.9), Bruce Sutter (47.6) and Goose Gossage (44.3). Don Mattingly received 28.2 percent as a first-year candidate.

Winfield and Puckett joined Carlton Fisk and Tony Perez (2000), Ferguson Jenkins and Gaylord Perry (1991), Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford (1974), and Lefty Grove and Mickey Cochrane (1947) as sets of teammates chosen in the same year by the BBWAA.

Also, Cy Young played with both Tris Speaker and Nap Lajoie, with all of them elected in 1937, research by the Elias Sports Bureau showed.

Puckett was an All-Star in 10 of his 12 seasons and led the Twins to unlikely World Series titles in 1987 and 1991. A career .318 hitter, he got more hits (2,040) in his first 10 years than any other player in the 20th century.

At 40 and now a Twins executive, Puckett became the third-youngest player to be elected while living. Only Lou Gehrig (36) and Sandy Koufax (37) made it sooner.

"I was at the top of my game when I was forced to retire," he said. "I think you could put my numbers over 12 years up with anybody, and they'd be comparable," he said.

Winfield, at 6-foot-6 about a foot taller than Puckett, joined Minnesota late in his career.

"The best thing I can say about him - and I played with a lot of guys - was that he's the most positive person I played with on a daily basis," Winfield said. "He did something for every teammate."

Winfield, 49, was listed on 435 of 515 ballots, with 387 necessary for election, and Puckett was picked on 423.