A bad April Fools’ joke

Gil Hodges with the Dodgers

In a cruel April Fool’s Day joke that is no joke, a special committee for the baseball's Hall of Fame 37 years ago today overlooks Leo Durocher, Phil Rizzuto, Joe Gordon and Gil Hodges for induction.

Durocher, Rizzuto and Gordon eventually reach the Hall of Fame well before 2022 – leaving the continued omission of Hodges, the longtime Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman and manager of the 1969 Miracle Mets, as an on-going bad joke to Hodges’ most ardent supporters.

They do not – and who can blame them – understand how voters for the Hall of Fame could overlook Hodges, who during the 1950s is Brooklyn’s extraordinary middle-of-the-order run producer.

With the bat, Hodges is Tony Perez before Perez begins his own Hall of Fame career in the mid-1960s.

Over a single-season average of 162 games, Hodges produces 29 home runs with 100 runs batted in and a .273 batting average, while Perez over the same span averages 22 homers, 96 RBIs and a .279 batting average.

With the glove, Hodges and Perez have identical .992 fielding percentages.

Same player, different era.

One in the Hall of Fame, one not.

Hence the joke that for decades is a bad one.

That joke, though, ends three years ago as Hodges finally gets enough votes to join the Hall of Fame's Class of 2022 – 50 years after he passes away of a heart attack on April 2, 1972 at the age of 47.

“No one had more impact on my career than Gil Hodges,” Mets pitcher and Hall of Famer Tom Seaver later says. “Playing for him was a learning experience, and he was a tower of strength.

“Not everybody liked him, but everybody respected him,” Seaver says. “He went about his job in a very professional manner, and it caused me to do the same with my job.”