Carlos Beltrán, Andruw Jones and Jeff Kent Inducted Into Baseball Hall of Fame

National Baseball Hall of Fame

The National Baseball Hall of Fame welcomed three new members on Sunday during an induction ceremony outside the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, New York. A record 60 returning Hall of Famers filled the stage to watch outfielders Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones take their plaques alongside second baseman Jeff Kent.

The three-person class is the smallest since just two players, Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen, were inducted in 2022. While Jones and Beltrán were voted into the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers Association of America, Kent was voted into Cooperstown by the Hall of Fame’s Contemporary Baseball Era Committee.

Fifty-seven previously inducted immortals — from the Class of 1972’s Sandy Koufax to last year’s three living honorees CC Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki and Billy Wagner — have returned to Cooperstown to celebrate their new brethren. To get there, the new inductees had to agonize through a combined 24 elections — four for Beltrán, nine for Jones, 11 for Kent.

Carlos Beltrán Solves the Metrics Matrix and Honors Puerto Rico

Beltrán’s path to Cooperstown took four ballots. A dynamic five-tool player in his prime, Beltrán was the 1999 American League Rookie of the Year and a nine-time All-Star with seven teams from 1998-2017. He enjoyed his greatest years with the Mets and will wear their cap on his Hall of Fame plaque. Beltrán retired with 2,725 hits, 435 home runs, and 312 stolen bases. He’s one of only five players with 400 home runs and 300 stolen bases, joining Barry Bonds, Andre Dawson, Willie Mays, and Alex Rodriguez.

While thinking of a way to honor his parents during his induction speech, Beltran pulled from one of Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio’s hits Sunday afternoon at the Clark Sports Center. Beltrán delivered most of his induction speech at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in English, but he delivered part of it in Spanish to address his parents, Wilfredo and Carmen. That’s when he quoted Bad Bunny’s “La Mudanza,” one of the songs the Puerto Rican star sang during the last Super Bowl halftime show. Un aplauso pa mami y papi porque en verdá rompieron. (In English, One round of applause for mom and dad because they truly crushed it.) I love that song, Beltrán said after he was inducted to the Hall along with Jeff Kent and Andruw Jones before an estimated crowd of 12,000. I like it because it’s a tribute to our parents.

“I think it’s cool what [Bad Bunny] does with his music. There’s no doubt that he looks for a way to promote Puerto Rico, recognize the family, recognize relationships. I think it was an important moment to mention them and for the fans that follow his music react to those words.” Beltrán was born in Manati, Puerto Rico, where his father Wilfredo Beltrán worked at a pharmaceutical company.

During his speech, Beltrán also thanked New York fans: To the Mets fans, thank you for believing in me, Beltrán said during his speech. You challenged me. You let me know when I needed to be better, and that was a lot of times. I got to hear those boos, but I also appreciate your support along the way.

Andruw Jones

Andruw Jones reached Cooperstown in his ninth year on the ballot. Beltrán and Jones are just the third and fourth center fielders elected by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America in nearly half a century. Since Duke Snider went in with the Class of 1980, only Kirby Puckett (2001) and Ken Griffey Jr. (2016) were counted as center fielders elected by the BBWAA until this year. So how fitting is it that these two men were born just one day apart in April 1977? Now they will share this day, and this honor, for a lifetime.

Jeff Kent Rewrites Second Base History and Recalls His Plymouth Volaré

Jeff Kent entered Cooperstown after exhausting his 10 years on a BBWAA ballot, granted enshrinement by the 16-member Contemporary Baseball Era Committee. Kent is the first second baseman to enter Cooperstown since the arrival of Craig Biggio in 2015. Second base has long been one of the least represented positions in the Hall. A 20th-round draft pick out of Cal, he went on to help reset the run-production standard for middle infielders. No second baseman has launched more home runs than Kent. He clocked out with 377 dingers, and his 1,518 RBI are mighty impressive, too. Kent piled up eight 100-RBI seasons. In 2000, he earned NL MVP honors with the Giants, who of course had Barry Bonds raking for them back then as well. That season, Kent notched a career-high .596 slugging percentage to go along with 33 homers and 125 RBI.

Teams Kent played for include the Toronto Blue Jays (1992), New York Mets (1992-96), Cleveland (1996), San Francisco Giants (1997-2002), Houston Astros (2003-04), and Los Angeles Dodgers (2005-08). Jeff Kent was an All-Star three of his six seasons with the San Francisco Giants, whom he helped reach the World Series in 2002.