Harold Baines' obvious discomfort with the format of the NBC Sports Chicago special commemorating his Hall of Fame induction was the funniest thing about it, but if I had to round it down to one moment, I'd call it this rare interjection:
Garfien: We talked about your dad before, and we actually talked about it in Las Vegas at the Winter Meetings--
Baines: Yeah, it went viral.
Baines was a little more relaxed with Harold Reynolds on the MLB Network, perhaps because Reynolds was a former teammate who brought enough energy to the conversation for both of them. And once again, Baines teared up when talking about his family.
Baines was never designed to go viral, so it took a surprise Hall of Fame nod to make him share his own story. That's one of a few reasons why White Sox fans should celebrate it, even if it's still a little hard to understand how it happened.
(As somebody who is highly interested in the Hall of Fame and its standards, I've quieted the cognitive dissonance by realizing that the only players with more seasons with an OPS+ over 100 are Cap Anson, Eddie Collins, Ty Cobb, Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, Joe Morgan, Carl Yastrzemski, Frank Robinson, Babe Ruth, Tony Gwynn, Dave Winfield, Willie Stargell, and Jim O'Rourke. Bonds is the only player not in the Hall of Fame, but he instead has to settle for labels like "all-time home run leader.")
Fans did celebrate him on Sunday in Cooperstown, and Baines once again reluctantly exceeded expectations for interaction. I clocked his speech at 9 minutes and 35 seconds, and while his voice quivered early, it seemed to stem equally from nerves and emotion. He didn't lose his composure until he started talking about his wife after seven minutes in.
As speeches go, it wasn't a force of nature like Frank Thomas' name tornado in 2014, but instead a direct, workmanlike accounting of the people he most needed to thank along the way. Like his baseball career, he showed up, he did what the circumstances required of him, and then he went home. Fortunately for him, now he's got a plaque that will do most of the talking for him.
