Tampa’s Fred McGriff officially joins baseball Hall of Fame

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — All you had to see was the reaction from the Hall of Famers on the stage when Fred McGriff was introduced at Sunday’s induction ceremony to know how well, and warmly, he was welcomed into their fraternity.

The Tampa native walked on the stage, waved to the crowed and turned right to walk to his seat. He shook hands with Ken Griffey Jr. and Johnny Bench, who were in the adjacent chairs. From the row behind, there were more congratulations, including from John Schuerholz, Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, Larry Walker, Derek Jeter and Paul Molitor.

Then as McGriff turned back to his seat, there was a clamoring from the Hall members on the other side of the stage, who wanted to share their love. McGriff threw up his arms and scurried across the aisle for more handshakes, from David Ortiz, Harold Baines, Joe Torre, Jim Thome, Cal Ripken and more.

“All of a sudden I’m hearing a little chant or something like that, and I’m thinking, ‘Is this the crowd?’ And then I turned around, and I was like, ‘Oh boy,’ ” McGriff explained after the ceremony at the Clark Sports Center.

“It’s all these guys. With the emotions, once you get into it, I’m like, ‘OK, I’ll go right over there and shake your hands.’ The whole experience has been awesome.”

As long as McGriff had to wait, through 10 years on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot, then four more years until being elected (unanimously) last December by the 16-member Contemporary Era committee, he deserved the extended welcome, which Hall officials called virtually unprecedented.

And as much as he worried about how he would handle the long-awaited afternoon, it really couldn’t have gone better.

McGriff won a bet with a friend who was sure he would cry during what was a roughly 18-minute speech, in which the 59-year-old thanked many and shared several stories.

He earned immense praise from his wife, Veronica, who beamed from the front row, sitting with their adult children Erick and Ericka and two grandchildren, and she at times got a bit teary-eyed herself.

“It was awesome,” Veronica said of the speech. “It was fantastic. I like my words — phenomenal, epic, incredible, magnificent.”

And McGriff stayed calmer than he expected, especially after months of emails, Zoom calls and meetings to go over logistics and details, and a Friday rehearsal that gave him some cause for concern. Enough so that Sunday he set his watch to monitor his heart beat.

“Originally, I thought I was going to be sweating, my heart was going to be pumping,” he said, especially when he was told he was up first with fellow inductee Scott Rolen to follow.

“So now we’re lining up to be introduced on stage, and I’m OK, I’m all right, my heart is OK. … On my watch I put on the little heart to tell me if my heart is pumping or not, if it was getting too high. But I was cool (94 beats per minute).

“Just the whole experience was awesome, and I’ll never forget it."

McGriff was rested and otherwise ready for the day, having called it an early night after a busy Saturday capped by riding in a parade down Main Street, attending a reception at the Hall of Fame featuring the members, and then a party in his honor co-hosted by the Rays, Blue Jays and Braves, the three teams he spent the most time with of the six he played for during his 19-season career.

He was in bed by 9:30 p.m. — “He has to be by around then otherwise he doesn’t function too well," Veronica said — then was up early for a Sunday morning breakfast meeting with Commissioner Rob Manfred, grabbed a quick nap and got ready to deliver the speech he had been writing and tweaking for much of the last seven months.

“It’s hard to put today’s induction into perspective," McGriff said from the stage, in front of a crowd estimated at 10,000. “This is baseball’s biggest honor. This is like icing on the cake. My goal was simply to make it to the big leagues. I exceeded every expectation I could ever imagine, and then some.

“It is a great feeling, getting recognized for your hard work. And now to have a plaque forever hanging in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. It’s unbelievable.”

McGriff, the son a school teacher (Eliza) and a TV repairman (Earl), started dreaming about being a big-leaguer while growing up in the Carver City-Lincoln Gardens area of Tampa, near what then was the Cincinnati Reds’ spring training base (and now adjacent to Raymond James Stadium and the Yankees facility).

“It’s been a long journey," McGriff said. “It’s a lot of hard work put in, thousands of hours trying to get better. But like I tell everyone, a computer can’t measure what’s in someone’s heart. And I always had heart.

“Growing up in Tampa, Florida, my Lincoln Gardens neighborhood, I couldn’t help but love baseball. I was always around it."

That included pickup games at the Boys and Girls Club, to the Forest Heights and West Tampa Little Leagues to Jefferson High — and, yes, he brought up the oft-told story of being cut from the Jefferson High team as a sophomore by legendary coach Pop Cuesta and how that motivated him.

McGriff ran through his pro career, starting with being drafted by the Yankees, debuting with the Blue Jays, then playing for the Padres, Braves (including his dramatic arrival the night there was a fire at the stadium), Rays, Cubs, Dodgers and Rays again.

He said he couldn’t name everyone who helped him and singled out a few who were very important: Ed Napoleon, a Yankees minor-league coach; Dave Magadan, the Tampa-born former big leaguer who was a youth league teammate and career-long workout partner; and Cito Gaston, his hitting coach in Toronto.

And of course he thanked his family, Veronica, their kids and especially his late parents: “No two people had bigger impacts on my life than my mom and dad. They were my No. 1 fans.”

McGriff, noting the company he was in on the stage, ended inspirationally:

“I encourage you, whatever your dream is, to never give up. And always remember to stay true to who you are. There will be fires along the way. Those fires can ignite the spark for the next season of your life."

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