A ‘difficult’ year for baseball’s Hall of Fame continues with death of Joe Morgan - San Francisco Chronicle

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The death of Joe Morgan on Sunday in Danville continued a series of losses of baseball Hall of Fame legends in 2020.

Hall of Famers Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford and Morgan died within the last two months. Hall of Famer Al Kaline died in April.

“To have this happen all at once is certainly difficult, for everybody,” National Baseball Hall of Fame president Tim Mead said by phone Monday. “It’s difficult for the organizations that are particularly close - where the players came from or where their loyalty and allegiance is - the fan bases and the (Hall) fraternity itself.”

Six deaths among Baseball Hall of Fame players is the most in one year since 1972, Mead said.

Kaline, who played 22 seasons with the Tigers and recorded 3,007 hits, became the 10th player inducted into the Hall in his first year of eligibility in 1980. Seaver, who won 311 games and three Cy Young Awards, was elected to the Hall in 1992 with 98.84% of the vote, the highest percentage until Ken Griffey Jr. in 2016. Brock broke MLB’s single-season and career steals records - later broken again by Rickey Henderson - and was elected to the Hall in 1985.

Gibson, who won 251 games in 17 seasons and the MVP and Cy Young Awards in 1968 with a 1.12 ERA, was elected in his first year of Hall eligibility in 1981. Ford — who died Thursday at the age of 91 — set the Yankees franchise record with 236 wins, pitched for six World Series champion teams and was inducted in 1974. Morgan, a two-time National League MVP and 10-time All Star who attended Castlemont High School in Oakland, was a first-ballot Hall of Fame selection in 1990.

Jeff Idelson, former Hall of Fame president from 2008 to 2019, said this stretch is “a blow to baseball fans everywhere - not only the Hall of Fame but baseball fans around the globe.

“Anytime one of the game’s legends passes away, they’ve achieved being called a legend not only because of how they performed on the field, but the characteristics that go with that, of character, integrity and sportsmanship,” Idelson said in a phone call. “Those are the common threads that bond the Hall of Famers.

“When you lose one Hall of Famer it’s devastating. When you lose five in five weeks, it’s almost incomprehensible.”

On Sunday, according to the Houston Chronicle, Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker said of the recent losses: “They got a heck of a pitching staff and heck of an offense in heaven. Who’s the Lord gonna start first in his rotation? Whitey Ford? Tom Seaver?”

After Morgan’s death, A’s Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley said Monday he’d spoken with former Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer, who was inducted to the Hall in 1990 with Morgan.