The four players will receive the biggest baseball honor one can achieve: an induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Pedro Martinez rounds out the pitchers being inducted this year, putting together a legendary career with first the Expos and most famously the Boston Red Sox. He went on to win three Cy Young awards.
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Johnson, Martinez and Smoltz were elected by big margins their first time on the ballot and represent the first trio of pitchers voted in together. He finished his career with 668 doubles and had more than 1,000 extra-base hits. He also earned four ERA titles and recorded 100 complete games and 37 shutouts.
Smoltz was a starter and reliever during his 21-year, career.
Smoltz is the first player elected to the Hall of Fame with Tommy John arm surgery on his resume. He joins two other pitchers from those great Atlanta teams who were entered the Hall last year Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. Biggio scored 1,844 runs, 15th on the career list, slammed 291 home runs and stole 414 bases. Biggio spent his entire 20-year career with the Astros, collecting 3,060 hits. 344 in 141 minor league games over parts of two seasons was called up in June 1988…. took over as Houston’s regular catcher in 1989 and had 13 homers and 60 RBIs to win the NL’s Silver Slugger Award for catchers….in 1991 batted.
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While several former Astros are already in the Hall, Biggio will be the first to be inducted as a member of the franchise. I mean, it was never ever done in the history of the game, and that was kind of fun to kind of prove them (the critics) wrong a little bit..
