Among baseball fans, “Hall of Fame” means not only the museum and facility in Cooperstown, New York, but the pantheon of players, managers, umpires, executives, and pioneers who have been inducted into the Hall. The first five men elected were Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson, chosen in 1936; roughly 20 more were selected before the entire group was inducted at the Hall’s 1939 opening.
*More HOF Members to be added. We do have real jobs you know.
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Tony Gwynn is considered one of the best and most consistent hitters in baseball history. Gwynn had a .338 career batting average, never hitting below .309 in any full season. A 15-time All-Star, he won multiple Silver Slugger Awards and five Gold Glove Awards.
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Cal Ripken Jr. holds the record for consecutive games played, 2,632, surpassing Lou Gehrig’s streak of 2,130 that had stood for 56 years and that many deemed unbreakable. In 2007, he was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility with 98.53% of votes, the sixth-highest election percentage ever.
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Willie Howard Mays Jr., nicknamed “The Say Hey Kid” and “Buck”, is an American former professional baseball center fielder. He spent almost all of his 22-season Major League Baseball career playing for the New York/San Francisco Giants before finishing his career with the New York Mets.
