NEW YORK (AP) — Todd Helton thought back to when he was a kid being coached by his father, Jerry, a minor league catcher in the 1960s.
“When I would go 1 for 3 — and it’s a bad day when you’re young — he’d say 1 for 3 gets you into the Hall of Fame,” Helton said.
Helton, Adrián Beltré and Joe Mauer were voted into Cooperstown on Tuesday, feeling elation and relief when they were rewarded with baseball’s highest honor.
Beltré was a no-doubt, first-ballot choice after batting .286 with 477 homers, 1,707 RBIs and 3,166 hits for four teams over 21 seasons. The third baseman appeared on 366 of 385 ballots (95.1%) cast by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Helton made it on the sixth try, voters taking time to warm to statistics inflated by the thin mile-high air of Denver’s Coors Field over 17 seasons, all with the Colorado Rockies. The first baseman got 307 votes for 79.7% after falling 11 short last year when Scott Rolen was elected. Helton started at 16.5% support in 2019.