Roberto Alomar was voted into the baseball Hall of Fame Wednesday, where it is likely the second baseman will be the first inductee wearing a Toronto Blue Jays hat.
The former all-star gained entrance to the Hall of Fame on Wednesday, when baseball officials announced the latest batch of big-leaguers to be enshrined in Cooperstown, N.Y. He received 90 per cent in the vote conducted amongst the Baseball Writers of America.
Pitcher Bert Blyleven, who received the support of 79 per cent of the ballots, joins Alomar in the latest round of player inductions. They will join former Blue Jays general manager Pat Gillick, former Montreal Expos broadcaster Dave Van Horne and sportswriter Bill Conline in a July 24 induction ceremony.
The Hall of Fame chooses which cap an inductee will wear, but do take a player's preference into account. Alomar has stated his preference is to go into Cooperstown as a Blue Jay, where he starred for five years and won two World Series rings.
He could be the first player to go into the hall as a Blue Jay.
Alomar also had strong years in Cleveland and Baltimore.
Players need to receive the support of 75 per cent of voters from the Baseball Writers Association of America, in order to get into the Hall of Fame.
Alomar came very close last year but didn't quite receive the required votes. That meant he had to wait until the current round of voting for another shot.
Paul Beeston, the president and CEO of the Blue Jays, recently said he was "surprised and disappointed when Robbie didn't get in last year, I shook my head at it, not only for the way he played with the Blue Jays, but for the way he played throughout his baseball career."
Over 17 seasons, Alomar piled up 2,724 hits, slugged 210 home runs, stole 474 bases, drove in 1,134 RBIs and scored 1,508 runs. He was a 12-time all star and won 10 Gold Gloves for his slick fielding.
Alomar has already been inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ont.
Former Blue Jays general manager Pat Gillick will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this year, but he is going in as an executive, not as a player.
Other ex-Toronto players have gone into the Hall of Fame, but were not wearing Blue Jay uniforms. Dave Winfield was a member of the Blue Jays during their 1992 World Series run, but he went into the Hall of Fame as a member of the San Diego Padres. Rickey Henderson and Paul Molitor, teammates on the squad that won the 1993 World Series, also went into the hall wearing non-Toronto uniforms.
Many players spend years on the Hall of Fame ballot but never get elected.
This year alone, there were three other ex-Blue Jays on the ballot -- Fred McGriff, Jack Morris and Dave Parker -- each of whom have yet to receive enough votes to have their day in Cooperstown.
The hard-hitting McGriff was one of the key ingredients in the historic two-for-two trade that brought Alomar to Toronto.
In the winter of 1990, the Blue Jays traded McGriff and shortstop Tony Fernandez to the San Diego Padres for the up-and-coming Alomar and slugger Joe Carter.
Two years later, Toronto went on to win the first of their back-to-back World Series, with Alomar and Carter becoming two of the most popular Blue Jays.
Fernandez would return to Toronto in 1993 to be a part of the second World Series-winning squad.
But McGriff would never play for the Blue Jays again.
With files from The Canadian Press
