Fifty years after a Baltimore junior high school teacher named John Schuerholz wrote a letter to the Baltimore Orioles that that led to a low-level job in his hometown team’s front office, the longtime baseball executive and general manager during the Atlanta Braves’ greatest era is a Hall of Famer.
Schuerholz, who won World Series titles as GM of the Kansas City Royals and the Braves and was the architect of Braves teams that won 14 consecutive division titles, was a unanimously elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday by the Today’s Game Era Committee, formerly known as the veterans committee.
Former commissioner Bud Selig was also elected, receiving 15 votes from the 16-member committee, which passed on eight other candidates, including the late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and former players including Albert Belle, Will Clark and Mark McGwire. At least 12 votes were required for election.
“I’m speechless almost,” Schuerholz said moments after the announcement Sunday night. “What a remarkable honor and I’m so very, very proud to have received the call and the invitation to join baseball’s Hall of Fame.”
Of the phone call he received from Hall of Fame chairman Jane Forbes Clark notifying him of his election, Schuerholz said, “Those words will ring in my ears and in my brain for the rest of my life. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am.”
Former player and manager Lou Piniella, with seven votes, was the only other candidate to get more than five from the committee. Former Braves manager Bobby Cox and fellow Hall of Famer and Braves broadcaster Don Sutton were committee members.
The sixth general manager elected to the Hall of Fame, Schuerholz will be inducted July 30 at Cooperstown, N.Y.
“No-brainer,” former Braves third baseman Chipper Jones said. “Best baseball exec over the last three or four decades. Extraordinary baseball man. Absolutely dedicated to the success of the Atlanta Braves. I’m thankful to have had the relationship that we had during my playing days. He always gave us a chance to be competitive.”
For the third time in four years, expect plenty of Braves foam tomahawks at the Cooperstown ceremony.
Schuerholz will be the fifth Braves stalwart inducted from the team’s unprecedented run, joining Cox, his working partner for 17 years, and their “Big Three” pitchers — John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux — who piled up Cy Young Awards while serving as the backbone of that Braves run.
“That’s great to be affiliated with those guys, those stars, and Chipper’s not far — another year and he’ll be there,” Schuerholz said. “I’m so honored and so pleased, so thrilled by this whole recognition and great honor.”
Maddux, Glavine and Cox were inducted in 2014 and Smoltz in 2015. Another Brave from that era, Jones is expected to be a first-ballot selection for the Hall of Fame class of 2018.
“What’s happened here through John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox is something that will never happen again in baseball,” Braves general manager John Coppolella said. “For me, John Schuerholz is the greatest GM of all time. And as good of a GM as he is, he’s an even better person. He is somebody that I look up to each day, that I’m honored to have as a mentor, and that is just such a special person. (Hall of Fame election) is well deserved and frankly long overdue.”
Schuerholz, 76, was inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame in August. He served as Braves general manager through 2007, then as team president until last spring, when he moved into his current position as vice chairman.
He won World Series titles with the Royals in 1985 and the Braves in 1995. His Atlanta teams won five NL pennants.
It seemed appropriate Schuerholz’s election came in Maryland, on the first day of the annual Winter Meetings at the Gaylord National resort outside Washington, D.C. Born in Baltimore, he was an undersized soccer and baseball player who showed promise as an aspiring journalist at Towson University before focusing on becoming an educator.
But he’d always been a baseball fan and at age 26, Schuerholz wrote a letter to the Orioles asking if there might be a job for him. He got an interview and job and it didn’t take long before he began impressing baseball decision-makers.
“I always wanted to be a major league baseball player and that dream died quickly because of good scouts in our business,” Schuerholz cracked, “and so I said, ‘Here I am in my dream world, I’m going to work as hard as I can and try to do all I can to be the best executive I can be.’ And it turned out like this.”
Three years after starting with the Orioles, Schuerholz joined the fledgling Royals in 1969. He spent 22 seasons with Kansas City, moving from farm director to take over as general manager at age 41, then the youngest GM in baseball.
Schuerholz came to the Braves before the 1991 season, replacing Cox, who moved back to manager, a position for which Schuerholz had tried to hire him in Kansas City. Schuerholz made moves to bring in veterans including Terry Pendleton, who came the NL MVP and led the Braves to their worst-to-first season in 1991.
Smoltz was the only player with the Braves for their entire run of first-place finishes. Schuerholz regularly sprinkled in free agents such as Maddux, Fred McGriff, Andres Galarraga and Gary Sheffield, and the Braves had a rich farm system that Cox and Paul Snyder helped build, producing David Justice, Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones and so many others.
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