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Having a local athlete join a HOF is no easy feat

(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 16th story in a 17-part series looking at Mike Mussina’s journey from Montoursville to the National Baseball Hall of Fame)

More than 19,000 athletes have played Major League Baseball. Only 232 have reached the National Baseball Hall of Fame. That is barely 1%.

And Mike Mussina becomes one of them this afternoon in Cooperstown when he is inducted into the Hall of Fame. He is part of a class that includes former teammates Mariano Rivera, Lee Smith and Harold Baines, as well as Roy Halladay and Edgar Martinez. The class size increases to 238 as Mussina becomes baseball royalty.

Mussina is the first Lycoming County and District 4 athlete to ever reach one of the four major sports’ Halls of Fame. Any Major Leaguer who first puts on a uniform is fighting enormous odds, but Mussina beat them and his induction marks the greatest individual sports achievement this area has ever seen.

“That’s the ultimate honor. Just knowing that he’s going to be in that fraternity is amazing. I was fortunate to play in the Major Leagues and I know how good those guys were, but this is an unbelievable level,” Montoursville native Tom O’Malley said. “To have somebody locally here do it is phenomenal. It’s hard to equate to something else. He has reached the pinnacle.”

“How many high school coaches say going to see one of their players from a small town going into the hall?” Mussina’s Montoursville baseball coach Carter Giles said. “It’s almost unfathomable.”

Mussina earned his Hall of Fame spot by consistently being great. He did not win a World Series or a Cy Young, but Mussina cranked out excellent seasons like Shakespeare did plays. While other pitchers might experience peaks and valleys, Mussina remained as steady as April showers. Managers could pencil him in for double-digit wins every season then comfortably sit back and watch Mussina deliver every time.

In 17 full seasons, Mussina never won fewer than 11 games. Eleven times Mussina won 15 games, finishing 270-153. He is one of only 27 pitchers to win at least 100 more games than he lost and his .638 winning percentage is 42nd in league history. He also put together 16 winning seasons, finishing 33rd in wins and becoming the oldest player in league history to win 20 games for the first time. Mussina did that in his final game, beating the Boston Red Sox on the last day in 2008 while finishing with a 20-9 record at age 39.

“Anybody that coached Mike is very proud and thrilled to have coached him. To be able to put the time in that you need to put in to be the type of baseball player he was and to take care of business the way he did speaks volumes,” Mussina’s Stanford baseball coach Mark Marquess said. “The longevity and the consistency in giving you a chance to win and always winning more than he lost is what makes him a Hall of Famer.”

What Hall of Fame first baseman Eddie Murray was to hitting, Mussina was to pitching. He was a consummate team player who helped the Orioles and Yankees win seven American League East Division championships and enjoy 13 winning seasons. He also helped the Yankees reach the World Series in 2001 and 2003, delivering memorable clutch performances during each of those runs against the Oakland A’s and the Red Sox.

Despite pitching in baseball’s toughest division his entire career throughout the Steroid Era, Mussina kept producing outstanding seasons. He finished among the top 6 in Cy Young voting nine times, ranked among the top 10 in ERA seven times and was among the top 10 in strikeout/walk ratio 15 times. Mussina started 536 games, threw 3,562 2/3 innings and struck out 2,813, good for 19th all-time when he retired.

Mussina was never focused on individual goals and the Hall of Fame was an afterthought. He was similar to Orioles teammate and “Iron Man” Cal Ripken, who played in 2,632 straight games. Mussina was a blue collar worker who showed up each day ready to go whether he was feeling good or battling nagging injuries. He punched his time card, went to work and did all he could to help his team win.

“He was a team player and he didn’t get where he got just on that and his talent. He worked for it,” Giles said. “He was Mr. Steady through everything.”

“You don’t look at it and think, ‘I’m going to the Hall of Fame.’ It’s more I want to pitch a season in the Majors and then pitch another and stay as long as I can,” Mussina said. “The individual honor of going to the Hall of Fame is something you don’t think of. You have a roster full of guys trying to win games. The individual stuff doesn’t cross your mind until it’s over. You’re just trying to win games.”

Mussina won a lot of those and it could be a long time, if ever, before another pitcher matches his 270 wins when looking at today’s best pitchers and their ages. Mussina did not have some of the individual honors that other of his contemporaries did, but the longer Mussina was gone from the game, the greater the appreciation for his accomplishments became.

And now Mussina takes his place among the greatest that have ever played baseball. That fact has not Mussina yet. Between coaching high school sports and preparing for his induction, Mussina has not had a lot of time to let this honor sink in. Quite frankly, comprehending this honor is mighty difficult.

“I don’t think I’ve figured that part out yet,” Mussina said. “Knowing I’ll still be there in 20 years and beyond, that’s hard to wrap your head around.”

That goes double for those who grew up playing with, against or watching Mussina. The odds of a Major Leaguer making the Hall of Fame is one percent, but that number looks large in comparison to the odds of an athlete from a town of 4,440 reaching it.

This is something that has never happened in this area, so appreciate this moment. Chances are this area will never anything like it again.

“Your goal is to play and see how well you can do and if you’re fortunate enough to make the Majors that’s great, but to make it there and be as consistent as he was, that’s the ultimate,” O’Malley said. “I know from playing baseball it doesn’t get any better.

“I used to dream and they came true for me, but to make it there into the halls of Cooperstown … That’s beyond dreams coming true.”

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