Cal and Tony: All That's Good About Baseball

Cal Ripken, Jr. and Tony Gwynn were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday. Their vote percentages were among the highest ever, Cal's 98.53% coming in 3rd behind Tom Seaver and the absurd vote for the fair-to-middling Nolan Ryan, while Tony placed 7th with 97.6%, following the above and Ty Cobb, George Brett and Hank Aaron. Nice company to be in.
Both players gave their entire careers to a single team. Cal was a product of The Oriole Way in the days when that meant something great. His dad was, of course, a baseball and Oriole lifer, and Cal followed closely in his footsteps. He changed the conception of shortstops. In the early days of my fandom, Ed Brinkman, Mark Belanger and Bud Harrelson were the exemplars. Great gloves all, they couldn't hit a lick. Cal changed that. He made shortstop an offensive position, too. But he never forgot his glove, either. The Streak is all the more remarkable because it was achieved by such a big shortstop. Cal saved the game. When owners and players and Idiot for Life Selig had done all they could to kill the game in 1994, Cal brought it back. On the night he broke Lou Gehrig's record, Cal's lap around Camden Yards might as well have been a lap around America, as he reminded the whole country what was good and right about baseball.
Tony Gwynn is the Ernie Banks of the San Diego Padres. Best player ever, best person ever, best face of a franchise ever. My personal experience of Tony Gwynn was at AutoZone Park (as I recall it, the first game ever played there, an exhibition between the Cardinals and the Padres). While the evil, arrogant, pathetic Rickey Henderson stood maybe two feet from the retaining wall separating the fans from the field and the players, ignoring every plea from every kid that dreamed of being the next stolen base king, a genuine baseball god, Tony Gwynn, stood at that wall, smiling, speaking and signing autographs for everyone even into the player introductions. When they called his name and he had to go line up, he apologized for having to go. That's Tony Gwynn.
These guys did it right. When Ryne Sandberg gave his powerful induction speech at Cooperstown, he talked about the value of honoring the game and doing things the right way. Ryno, and baseball fans everywhere, were proud on Tuesday when two good men, two great baseball players, two guys who always did it right, were elected for induction. It will be a great day in July when Cal and Tony join their fellow immortals in the only Hall of Fame that matters.