The 2024 National Baseball Hall of Fame class was formally inducted into Cooperstown on Sunday, with Adrian Beltré, Joe Mauer, Todd Helton and Jim Leyland delivering speeches before their plaques were put on display.
Beltré, Helton and Mauer gained enshrinement via the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA), while Leyland was elected by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee.
The 2024 Hall of Fame ballot featured 26 total candidates, including 12 newcomers.
Beltré, who was on the ballot for the first time, earned the most votes of the candidates with 366, which accounted for 95.1% of the electorate. Hall of Fame hopefuls needed to be named on 75% of ballots cast in order to be inducted into Cooperstown.
Beltré spent 21 seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Sox and Texas Rangers.
He played 2,759 of 2,933 career games at third base, second only to the 2,870 games by Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson. On career lists, Beltre ranks ninth in at-bats (11,068), 11th in doubles (636), 15th in total bases (5,309), 15th in extra base hits (1,151), 18th in hits (3,166), 25th in runs batted in (1,707) and 31st in home runs (477).
During his Dodgers career, Beltré hit .274/.332/.463 with 176 doubles, 147 home runs and 510 RBI. In 2004, he batted .334/.388/.629 with 32 doubles, an MLB-leading 48 home runs and 121 RBI across 156 games. Beltré finished second in voting for the 2004 National League MVP Award, which was won by Barry Bonds for a seventh season in a row.
Beltré began his career by signing with the Dodgers in 1994 as an amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic. Beltré made his MLB debut in 1998 and spent the first seven seasons of his career with L.A. before signing with the Seattle Mariners.
Adrian Beltré’s Hall of Fame speech
Part of Adrian Beltré’s Hall of Fame speech entailed expressing his gratitude for the Dodgers organization, manager Tommy Lasorda and former teammate Dave Roberts, among others.
“My path Cooperstown has been shaped by the people who spent time teaching me at every step of the way. With that help, I continued to learn and improve to make my way here. And I want to now share with you all how my baseball journey began when I was almost 13 years old.
“When I was at school, one of my classmates, Nen Garibaldi, saw my baseball abilities during PE and asked me if I wanted to join his baseball team on the weekends. On that weekend, I head over to the field, I introduced myself to the coach and asked him if I can join his baseball team. He said, ‘No problem.’ I paid my subscription with some money I had left for my birthday.
“After that, I went home and told my parents that I signed myself up in a baseball league, and the only to do was pay for the monthly dues. The first thing my dad asked me was, ‘What position are you going to play?’ I replied, I didn’t know. He said to me, ‘You should play second base, because I don’t think you’re going to be very tall.’ So I did.
“I started practicing at second base and earned a starting job within two weeks. And about three months later, the third baseman wanted to play second base, and he said to me, ‘I think you look better at third base. I think we should swap positions. And I simply said, OK, and I moved to third.
“I immediately fell in love with that position. I loved every challenge of playing third base. I was hooked. Those hot shots, slow ground balls, bunt plays. I couldn’t get enough of them. Thank you, Herdamas Lopez.
“Around two years later, MLB team started to look at me. One of those teams was the Dodgers. I was always grateful to the Dodgers to give an opportunity to this 15-year-old kid from Dominican Republic, to sign me to a professional contract. Now my dream of becoming a professional baseball player was a reality.
“Where at my age, I still had more to learn and get people to teach me. After my school year, I was sent to Campo Las Palmas in the Dominican Republic, where I got to learn the fundamentals of the game from Teddy Martinez and Luis Ángel Montalvo and all the other coaches at that camp.
“After one year of summer league, I was able to come to United States and pursue my dream of becoming an MLB player. Thank you to this great nation for allowing me to live out my dream.
“I came to the Minor League and I got better with a lot of help with coaches like … John Shoemaker. … On June 23, 1998, when I was in Double-A, I received one of the most important calls of my life.
“I want to thank this legend so much for giving me the opportunity in having the guts to call this 19-year-old kid from the Dominican Republic to the big leagues, when nobody was expecting it. Especially me.
“I was always grateful to the late Tommy Lasorda. I made it to the big leagues and started learning from guys like José Vizcaíno, Marcus Grayson, Ramón Martínez, Bobby Bonilla, Raúl Mondesi, and then César Izturis, Dave Roberts, Alex Cora. And one of my favorite teammates ever, ‘El Flaco,’ Shawn Green.
“I spent seven seasons in L.A. Some of those years were difficult, which shaped me and made me tough and stronger mentally. So thank you to all the managers and coaches in L.A., especially Jim Tracy, Manny Mota, Jimmy Lef, John Shelby, and one of my favorite hitting coaches, Tim Wallach.
“Thank you to the trainer, Stanley Johnson for being so cool. He knows what I’m talking about. Thank you to the clubhouse guys, Alex Torres and Mitch Poole. And to the L.A. fans, I really appreciate you. You were hard at times when I sucked, but when I was doing good, you really let me know.
“I will never forget the MVP chance in 2004. Love you, L.A. fans. Thank you for the support.”
With Adrian Beltré now enshrined, there are 64 former executives, scouts, managers, players or broadcasters with Dodgers ties in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
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