Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen proudly displayed their Hall of Fame plaques after Sunday’s induction ceremony.

When the Yankees’ (shall we say) mercurial then-owner, George Steinbrenner, faced likely suspension over his campaign to smear his Hall of Fame right fielder Dave Winfield, George F. Will pondered whether then-commissioner Fay Vincent should marshal enough consensus to force Steinbrenner to sell the team. Will even imagined vetting a jury to empanel hearing a court case over it.

“Here is a pretty judicial pickle,” Will wrote parenthetically. “Imagine trying to assemble an impartial jury of New Yorkers to hear Steinbrenner’s case. ‘Tell the court, Mr. Prospective Juror, do you have any strong opinions about the owner who masterminded the trade of Fred McGriff from the Yankees to the Blue Jays in exchange for a couple of no-names? Stop snarling, Prospective Juror’.”

Come Sunday afternoon, that same Fred McGriff stood on the Cooperstown stage accepting his Hall of Fame plaque. Elected to the Hall by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, the Crime Dog didn’t exactly keep the Yankees high on his gratitude list, though the trade that might have had a prospective New York juror snarling could have been called the trade that launched him to where he now stood.

“I’d like to welcome everyone here from Atlanta to San Diego, Toronto, my hometown of Tampa Bay and everywhere in between. Thank you for showing up,” said the tall first baseman who became baseball’s first and so far only man to hit 30+ home runs in a season for five different teams. (And, the first Hall of Famer whose plaque mentions OPS.)

It is awesome to be here accepting this honor. What a blessing from the man upstairs. Beautiful weather. You can’t beat it. I’m so grateful to be going into the Baseball Hall of Fame alongside a guy like Scott Rolen who played the game the right way. A true professional. I want to thank the many living legends sitting behind me. I’m humbled and honored to be standing in front of you. And now to be part of this fraternity alongside you—just some great individuals behind me.

In one way, no player ever had a later-in-life baptism of fire to equal McGriff’s. It wasn’t enough that his career tended to be buried beneath the ramped-up batting stats of both the era of actual/alleged performance-enhancing substances (McGriff was never a suspect) and new ballparks that over-embraced hitting. No. He had to play his first game for the Braves under, shall we say, fiery conditions, after his fire-sale trade from the Padres:

I was nursing an injury when the trade happened. So I drove to Atlanta, I left Tampa at noon. I didn’t expect to play. But when I got to the ballpark, there is my name in the lineup. I was sweating. But I believe the man upstairs bought me some time when a food heat lamp caught on fire.

 

The start of the game was delayed two hours, long enough for me to get some more treatment. And I felt a little bit better. I started the game. And I tied it up in the sixth inning with the home run. The next day, I hit two home runs. And that Braves team caught on fire. We ended up catching the Giants after being ten games out of first place at the time to trade, and we won the division.

Two years later, McGriff and those relentless Braves teams of the 1990s won their only World Series rings. The Crime Dog did splendidly for a fellow who’d been cut from his high school baseball team once upon a time.

Both McGriff and Rolen had reason to wonder if they might ever get to Cooperstown as other than paying guests. Rolen may have thought about it just a little bit less.

“At no point in my lifetime did it ever occurred to me that I’d be standing on this stage,” the third baseman with a live bat and an Electrolux way at third said early, nodding to the Baseball Writers Association of America who elected him in January. “But I’m glad it occurred to you, because this is unbelievably special.”

(Asked whether Rolen could play shortstop, his one-time Phillies manager Terry Francona replied, referring to his broad range at third, “He’s playing it!”)

A two-sport star in his native Indiana, before beginning his baseball career, Rolen remembered learing something from his father after a particularly trying basketball mini-camp. “After day one, I told Dad that I had a minor problem . . . that I need advice with. And his answer (was), ‘OK’.”

“Well, Dad. I can’t handle the ball. I can’t shoot. I’m completely out of basketball shape. And everybody in the entire gym, including the coach, is better than me.’ And his answer?”

“OK.”

“What do you mean, ‘OK?’”

“Well, what are you going to do, Scotty?”

“Well, that’s what I’m asking you, Dad.”

“Well, how the hell do I know? You say you can’t dribble. You can’t shoot. You’re out of shape. And you’re completely overmatched. You told me what you can’t do? What can you do?”

“I guess I can rebound.”

“OK.”

“I can play defense.”

“OK.”

“I can dive for loose balls. Doesn’t appear that the guys are playing too hard up here. I could outhustle, outwork and beat everybody up and down the floor.”

“OK.”

And then here came the words of wisdom: “Well, do that then.”

It turns out that, “Well, do that then,” carried me into the minor leagues and gave me a simple mindset that I would never allow myself to be unprepared or outworked. “Well, do that then” put me onto this stage today.

The man who won a World Series ring as a key element of the 2006 Cardinals finished by doing something he’d done from the moment his parents first made the trek to see him play a major league game. He tipped his cap to them. Then, it was a Phillies cap. Sunday, it was a Hall of Fame cap. The number ten third baseman of all time never forgot.

“This is baseball’s biggest honor,” McGriff said. “This is like icing on a cake. You see, my goal was simply to make it to the big leagues. And I exceeded every expectation that I could ever imagine and then some. It is a great feeling getting recognized for your hard work.”

“I’m grateful for this grand gesture,” said Rolen, one of only four third basemen ever to hit 300+ home runs, steal 100+ bases, and hit 500+ doubles. (The others: Hall of Famers George Brett and Chipper Jones, plus Hall of Famer in waiting Adrián Beltré.) “I have an overwhelming respect and intend to represent these (Hall of Famers) behind me and this legendary Hall with the integrity on which it was built.”

McGriff and Rolen have something else in common aside from forging a new friendship. McGriff got the last laugh on a capricious Yankee owner who thought he could afford to lose the Crime Dog’s budding self. Rolen got the last laugh on a Phillies regime that allowed him to be viewed unfairly as indifferent while also letting him take unfair abuse when he challenged their willingness to build and sustain winning teams.

McGriff’s Hall plaque shows him wearing a blank cap atop his smiling, mustachoed face, and it reposes next to Negro Leagues legend/longtime Cubs coach/scout/baseball’s arguable finest ambassador, Buck O’Neil. Rolen’s plaque reposes next to Red Sox/postseason legend David Ortiz, showing him in a Cardinals cap, looking as determined as he was holding third base down almost two decades, resembling if anyone music legend Neil Young.

Both Rolen and McGriff heeded when their bodies began telling them it was time to go. Thus, one particular Young lyric stands forward, when thinking of them compared to those greats who, in Thomas Boswell’s words, “torture their teams, their fans, and themselves, playing for years past their prime, for the checks and the cheers”:

It’s better to burn out/than to fade away.

Despite McGriff’s bald pate and Rolen’s thinning one, they both look as though they could still play nine innings in a tough pennant race. But they spared us and themselves the tortuous long fade away. McGriff and Rolen finally stood on the Cooperstown podium Sunday, inspiring and accepting cheers at least as edifying as those incurred by a timely hit, a long home run, a tough play at first, an impossible play at third.