Ted Simmons, Marvin Miller finally get their due with Hall of Fame election

SAN DIEGO -- Momentous events often take place in ordinary settings. That's what it felt like Sunday night, when the Baseball Hall of Fame announced that legendary MLB Players Association head Marvin Miller and St. Louis Cardinals catching great Ted Simmons would be immortalized in Cooperstown, New York.

Every year, the news of the veterans committee voting drops on the evening when baseball's winter meetings are just beginning to ramp up. The media work room is only partially full; the chairs arrayed in front of the stage where media conferences are held are empty. Because Miller is no longer with us and Simmons had not yet arrived in San Diego, the chairs remained empty Sunday. Meanwhile, as the baseball industry descended on the city, reporters, writers, executives and agents were all shaking hands and preparing for an intense few days.

In that setting, with an aura of travel and hubbub, the Hall's announcement seeped out on television screens, mobile phones, tablets and laptops. Two new Hall of Famers. It's surreal how huge the news about the past is, yet it gets swamped by the buzz of what is happening now and what might happen in the next few days. But that doesn't diminish the moment because it means so much to so many.

As always, when someone makes the Hall of Fame, the human reaction is simple appreciation, even joy, absorbed vicariously through someone who has just received news that even they might not have been fully aware of how badly they wanted to hear. That is my first thought: Good for you, Ted Simmons. And good for you, Marvin Miller and family, who are no doubt holding you even closer in their hearts.

Miller told friends before he passed away at the age of 95 in 2012 that he wanted no part of the Hall of Fame. Although you want to respect the wishes of the man, the Hall of Fame is an institution that is about the game of baseball, its place in our culture and, most importantly, the people who love it. As much as the honor means to those who earn their way in, it isn't really about them, in the end. It's about the thousands of people who look upon the walls in the plaque gallery year after year and generation after generation.

Miller's selection rights one of the great wrongs in the Hall's history. As the most revolutionary labor leader in sports history, Miller was essential in moving the baseball industry into the modern age, one in which the players became true partners in the game. Sure, his efforts helped move a sizable percentage of the owners' profits into the players' coffers, but the game is better for the path he led the players down. Even if no one speaks on his behalf in July, as perhaps he wanted, his story will now be told forever in Cooperstown. That makes the Hall a more complete institution than it was yesterday.

As with all players of his time, Simmons benefited from Miller's work. In fact, Simmons merited several warm mentions in Miller's memoir, in which the labor icon wrote of Simmons, in 1972, becoming the first major league player to appear in a game without having signed a contract. After Simmons was unable to reach an accord with the Cardinals, the team simply renewed his contract. It was such practices that Miller exposed and later exploited as he cleared the path for free agency.

"What Marvin was good at doing was he was willing to listen to everybody's view," Simmons said Sunday on a conference call with reporters. "I've sat in those meetings for hours, and Marvin would patiently wait for every single one to speak their mind. And I'm telling you: Half the things I heard coming out of the players' mouths, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"In the end, after everyone had spoke their mind, he would bring it all together and present it in a way that everyone thought that, yes, this is exactly what we collectively think. That's what he was so special at."

For Miller and Simmons, we can only be happy because to be immortalized in Cooperstown is a very precious thing. Such sentiments ought to be the default position, but last year at this time, the venom directed at the selections of Harold Baines and Lee Smith created an unfair aura of negativity that detracted from the happiest of days for two outstanding players and ambassadors of the game. That was bad.

This time around, it's unlikely that any combination of nominees who landed the requisite 12 of 16 committee votes to earn enshrinement would have created the same kind of furor. There were plausible Hall cases for all 10 candidates, and I would not have objected to any of them getting in, nor will I if any of them is enshrined in the future. Because the cases of so many of these candidates were so difficult to slot into a pecking order, it was all but impossible for the selectors to arrive at a consensus. Thus, not as many candidates made it in as I would've liked to see.

Yet 12 of the committee members did come to an accord on Simmons, and that's all it took to end the waiting for one of the 10 or 15 best catchers in baseball history. He was outshined during his prime -- and in his own league -- by Johnny Bench, possibly the best backstop ever. Simmons was a regular catcher for about 13 seasons in the majors, from 1971 to 1983. During those seasons, only Bench produced more Baseball Reference WAR (57.1) than Simmons' 52.4.

Yet Simmons fell off the BBWAA ballot after his first year of eligibility in 1994, when he got just 3.7% of the vote. Then he failed to gain entry in three subsequent rounds of consideration by veterans committees. All through those years, Simmons' case gained momentum in the analytical community, and as evaluative methods sharpened over the years, his case only grew stronger.

"Played in an era with Bench and [Manny] Sanguillen and [Carlton] Fisk, [Bob] Boone, [Gary] Carter, [Steve] Yeager -- all these people who were to that period as catchers," Simmons said. "And it's difficult to match up with people like Bench, who won World Series year in, year out.

"The comparisons become maybe not as thoroughly looked into as maybe they should be. But in the last 15, 20 years, since the analytics departments have all become so in-depth, people have started talking about WAR and what is involved with that. People started looking at me and revitalized my candidacy."

In 21 seasons, Simmons hit .285. He finished with 2,472 career hits and 248 home runs. Impressive numbers for a catcher. But his amazing plate discipline tended to be overlooked and overwhelmed by middling critiques of his defense. Analytics recognize that plate discipline; Simmons walked 161 more times in his career than he struck out, and he often finished in the top 10 of the NL in on-base percentage. In 1979, he hit a career-high 26 home runs and struck out just 34 times. Among career catchers, he's second in hits, doubles and RBIs.

It's a Hall of Fame résumé, and finally, four months after Simmons turned 70, enough of the right people recognized that.

"They say renewal is wonderful," Simmons said. "At 70, it's left me scratching my head. But there is never too long to wait if you finally make the leap. Today I finally did."

The format of the veterans committee has changed a number of times, and it remains susceptible to cronyism and all manner of pitfalls that come with working with a small electorate. That's the unfortunate thing here: The way the voting is set up remains mathematically stacked against anyone listed on an overstuffed ballot. Perhaps a run-off round would help fix the issue. Voters simply pick who they think should get in, with no minimum or maximum, and maybe the top five enter a run-off. As it is, an underrepresented era remains underrepresented.