Baseball Hall of Fame: Ted Simmons, Marvin Miller first two in 2020 class

Tom Gatto

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Baseball Hall of Fame: Ted Simmons, Marvin Miller first two in 2020 class image

Ted Simmons and the late Marvin Miller will be honored in Cooperstown next July after their election to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Modern Era Committee.

The committee's vote was announced Sunday night at the Winter Meetings in San Diego.

Simmons was long considered Hall-worthy for being one of the top catchers of his time. He played 21 seasons (1968-88) for the Cardinals, Brewers and Braves, compiling 50.3 career bWAR and eight All-Star Game selections in an era that included fellow Hall of Fame backstops Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk and Gary Carter. Simmons collected more hits than those three with 2,472, and he also slugged 248 home runs.

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He played in the postseason twice, with the Brewers in 1981 and 1982. He reached the World Series with Milwaukee in '82; the Brewers lost to the Cardinals in seven games.

Simmons, now a scout for the Braves after holding various front-office and coaching positions around MLB dating to 1992, told MLB.com that a modern approach to examining his career helped get him into the Hall three decades after his retirement as a player.

Miller, who died in 2012 at age 95, likewise has had strong outside support for induction. His leadership of the Players Association from 1966-82 helped bring free agency and multimillion-dollar player contracts to baseball, although with that came multiple work stoppages and decades of acrimony between players and team owners. Player strikes in 1972 and 1981 shortened MLB seasons, and there was a strike during spring training in 1980. Owners locked out the players during spring training in 1973 and 1976.

His successor as executive director, Donald Fehr, maintained a hard line in negotiations with management, and a players' strike in 1994 helped to wipe out the final third of the regular season and the entire postseason.

The Modern Era Committee is a 16-member panel composed of Hall of Fame players, MLB team executives and media members. The 2020 ballot also included Dwight Evans, Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, the late Thurman Munson, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker and Lou Whitaker. Candidates needed 12 votes (75 percent) for election.

Murphy tweeted a gracious response to the vote:

Bench, meanwhile, saluted Simmons for his election:

MLBPA figures and player agents hailed Miller's election while also lamenting Hall of Fame politics from previous decades:

The Baseball Writers' Association of America is voting on a separate slate of candidates for the 2020 Hall of Fame class. The results of that voting will be announced in January.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.