Rant #2,304: Yankee Doodle Dandy

For those who do not like my sports Rants, well, now is the time to turn away and come back tomorrow, because this is going to be one of those Rants that you do not like.

Yesterday, four of the greatest players of their generation were elected to baseball's Hall of Fame, and for once, the HoF did it right.

And they did it so right, that two New York Yankees were elected yesterday ... or should I say, 1.5 Yankees. I will explain that later.

As it was, the Yankees' Mariano Rivera and Mike Mussina, the Mariners Edgar Martinez, and the Toronto Blue Jays' Roy Halladay gained entrance into the vaulted HoF, probably the most celebrated--and criticized--HoF of them all.

Martinez was simply the greatest designated hitter of his generation, the first who made it something of an art form and a viable spot in the lineup. He was the best of all time save David Ortiz, who will go in when his time comes. And he was a nemesis of Rivera, the one hitter the pitcher said he feared.

Halladay actually could go in as a Blue Jay or a Philadelphia Phillie, as he won Cy Young Awards for both teams during his storied career, a player who had to remake himself, going down to the lowest rung of MLB-affiliated baseball, the A minor league, to get to where he got to.

And that leaves Rivera and Mussina.

Mussina spent his entire 18-year career pitching in the toughest division in baseball, the American League East. He spent 10 years with the Baltimore Orioles (hence the "1.5 Yankees" designation up above), and he was a winner from the get go. He actually won 20 games in his final season, the only season he ever reached that mark.

He was a cerebral athlete before that term became popular. And with analytics, what he did during his career came more clearly into focus, as one of the best starting pitchers in the game, and certainly one of the best of the past 25 years or so.

And he said during an interview on the YES Network yesterday that he had no idea how he should go into the HoF, as a Yankee or as an Oriole. The HoF will be the body which will choose how he goes in, and I believe that to the chagrin of Yankees fans, he will go in as an Oriole. The Yankees have plenty of players in the HoF, and one of the greatest is going in this year ...

Rivera is in a class by himself. People forget that the all-time leader in saves--652 of them during his 19 year career, all spent with the Yankees--began his career as a starter. He had the beginnings of lights-out stuff, but was not going to make it starting games. Out of necessity, he morphed into a reliever and finally a closer, and there was none better, either during the regular season or during the playoffs and World Series.

He was a member of the Yankees' fabled "Core Four," and along with Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, and Derek Jeter, he defined the Bronx Bombers during that period where they won five World Series, and came close several other times.

One can say that if not for Rivera, they would never have won those five championships, and one would probably be correct in that assumption.

What's more, his demeanor, his personality, his personal beliefs, and this tenacity made him the perfect relief pitcher, icy cold on the mound but burning within.

And who could leave him off their ballot and fess up to it? No one, and with his election to the HoF, he became the first player to be named on 100 percent of the ballots turned in by sportswriters around the country.

If that isn't a testament to what type of player he was, I don't know what is.

There was a rumor that one writer left him off his ballot because he didn't believe closers deserved such an honor--they generally pitch just one inning of a game, unlike relievers of old, who often pitched three or more innings to close out games--but evidently, that writer had a change of heart, and Rivera was named on every ballot submitted to the HoF.

The four players named skirted the dreaded PED era in baseball, where just about every player was labeled as a drug user, using performance enhancing drugs to elevate their game, but of the four, three were completely above reproach: Martinez, Mussina and Rivera.

Halladay is a different story altogether. His story is an interesting one. A promising pitcher early on, he injured himself to the point that he went down to the low minor leagues to learn how to pitch again, and remade himself as one of the best starting pitchers of his generation.

But his life after baseball was suspect. He died in a plane crash a few years ago, died while piloting his own plane, and drugs were found in his system.

Whether he used them during his playing career is questionable, but he was never cited to doing so, so he probably might have gravitated toward them--morphine, amphetamines, other drugs of which such a combination was known as a "speedball"--to combat tiredness while piloting the plane, and for no other reason.

Nobody will ever know, but during his playing career, he was evidently clean, so that certainly did not come into play in his being voted into the HoF.

So the Class of 2019 has been named, and it sure will be a fun HoF ceremony this summer in Cooperstown, New York, in particular when Rivera takes the podium.

The Panamanian, who did not know a word of English when he came to the U.S. to begin his baseball career, came from the humblest of beginnings, a poor fishing village where he had to fashion a mitt out of a milk carton.

But he has since become a terrific public speaker, married and raised his children in Westchester, helped his wife set up a church there, and truly, he is the American Dream all rolled up into one individual.

He literally took the ball, ran with it, and never looked back.

You just know his speech will be incredible.

I can't wait for the inductions. It will be one to record for the ages, and once that ceremony is over, we move onto the class of 2020 ...

Derek Jeter, I presume ... .