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Today, 43 years later, that same boy, having completed a glorious cycle in the Major Leagues, aspires to be enthroned in the Cooperstown Hall of Fame.
Do you have the credit for immortality? The numbers are there and by virtue of them, little by little it had the support of baseball reporters in the voting.
In his three years of eligibility, the Caracas man rose to the polls. In the first year it obtained 37% of votes, and in 2019 it accumulated 48.2% in the preferences of reporters. Well, continuing with the screening, the name of Omar Vizquel appeared at the beginning of this 2020 in 209 of the 397 votes delivered by the members of the Association of Baseball Writers, equal to 52.6%.
It should be noted that 75% of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) preference is required to enter the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. And to stay as a candidate every year, you need to have 5% support.
“I am very satisfied and happy with what I see. I passed 50%, which is very good. I didn’t think it would hit 52%, but you never know, “Vizquel warned, adding that it could be that next year the vote will drop with the incorporation of new players.
“There is a lot of competition every year, but what happened in 2020 is an indication that we are on the right track. That increase of around 9% this year has been very good. It’s not that easy, “he said.
Vizquel’s statement is so true that Luis Aparicio, the only Venezuelan player in the Hall of Fame, progressively went from 27.8% in his first year of eligibility – in 1979 – to 32.2% in 1980, to finally give the big leap from 67.4% – on his sixth attempt in 1983 – to his enthronement in 1984 with 84.6% support from journalists covering Major League Baseball.
An excellent career
At the age of 17, he started playing in the Caracas Lions shortstop. Already in 1984, a very young Omar Vizquel began to carve out his destiny as a baseball player and an integral citizen, taking on a leading role in one of the most emblematic teams of Venezuelan baseball with responsibility and professionalism.
Five years later, he made the leap to the Major Leagues with the Seattle Mariners, having honed his development on farms in Vermont and Calgary. In that 1989 season, he made 18 mistakes in 614 defensive plays, but that circumstance, far from discouraging him, encouraged him to continue working on the defensive excellence he finally achieved in 24 seasons. But which of them was the most glorious?
“I think that first season, at just 21, was my most important season, because I got to the Major Leagues and it was the one that paved the way for everything I did. The second most glorious was when I reached the World Series in 1995, too bad we weren’t champions, but this is every player’s goal, to help the team go as far as possible.
The golden gloves
A total of eleven gold gloves has Omar Vizquel at his windows, the last two with the San Francisco Giants in 2005 and 2006, which made him the longest-serving shortstop in history to get them (38 and 39 years).
“The Golden Glove that filled me most with satisfaction was the fifth (in 1996) because with that I equaled my idol David Concepción. I’ve always seen David and Luis Aparicio as great shortstop and the fact of tying Concepción filled me with pride because he was my undisputed idol. I have not seen Mr. Luis Aparicio play, but when I managed to tie him in the golden gloves with the ninth (in 2000) I felt a great joy, because although he was not my idol, he was something else because he was the only one Hall of Fame in Venezuela and for me it was a great success, something I couldn’t believe ”.
Today he recognizes that the hit that most filled him with satisfaction was the number 2,000, since in his own words, “when a player reaches 2,000 hits it is because he has had a long career and is consecrated in the Major Leagues. I was a scary one. left-handed hitter because I started hitting that band late, but that shot in Cleveland against right-footed Jason Grinsley of the Kansas City Royals brought me a lot of joys. Leones of Caracas, a team that opened their doors to me until the end of my career. I looked back and the numbers I achieved are incredible. “
The new generations
Omar Vizquel is aware that the new generation of players have tools that make them develop faster. “Whenever you look at the stats of the new players that are emerging in the Major Leagues, we have to make sure that the learning is much better than in previous years. Before, a player used to come to the Major Leagues at 22 or 23 and still had to undergo a learning process. Not now, right now there are 19 and 20 year olds who already know a lot, who have developed rapidly through all the structures of the modern world that have been offered to them, as in the case of computers., reports , all that information that reaches them much faster. Also, there is the way to eat, to work in the gym, and of course all this helps the player to develop in less time. There you see players like Altuve (José), like Acuña (Ronald), who with just 21 or 22 years has already become the protagonist of the Major League “.
Omar Vizquel took the opportunity to send a message of solidarity to Venezuela, a country that is not going through its best moment. “The best message for Venezuelans is that we remain optimistic for the future, I know there are many things that are happening and that affect all of us, including those of us who live in the US who have relatives there. We need to stay positive., undertake new things, think about how we can adapt to achieve success in one way or another. You have to reinvent yourself every day and move forward. ”
Finally he greeted by sending a warm greeting to the people who work in The universal. “Thank you very much for the opportunity,” concluded Omar Vizquel.
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