Only once before have two former Twins been inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame during the same ceremony. It will happen again in July.
Jim Thome, whose 22-year major league career included 179 games in a Twins uniform, was voted into the Hall's Class of 2018 on Wednesday. Thome, who received the votes of 89.8 percent of ballots cast by the Baseball Writers Association of America, will join St. Paul native Jack Morris, who was elected by a veterans' committee in December, for induction in Cooperstown, N.Y., on July 29. Only in 2001, when Kirby Puckett and Dave Winfield were elected, have two former Twins gone in together.
Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero and Trevor Hoffman also were elected Wednesday
While neither Thome nor Morris spent more than a fraction of their careers in Minnesota, each made baseball history here.
On Aug. 15, 2011, Thome became the eighth player in major league history to reach 600 homers when, one inning after collecting No. 599, he clobbered a 2-1 curveball from lefthanded reliever Daniel Schlereth into the Tigers' bullpen in Detroit. It didn't deliver a World Series championship the way Morris' memorable 10-inning, Game 7 shutout of the Braves had capped his single season with the Twins in 1991, but it marked the signature moment of Thome's successful two-year stint in Minnesota.
"It's a big number, a special, special number," Thome told the Star Tribune at the time. "But I don't want to make it about a number — I play to win games."
Two days later, Thome hit No. 601 — but it turned out to be the last of his 37 homers with the Twins, who traded him to Cleveland the following week in hopes of allowing the veteran slugger to take part in another pennant race.
Thome's career began as a third baseman in Cleveland in 1991 and lasted 22 seasons with six different teams. He hit a home run every 13.76 at-bats during his career — more than every player except Mark McGwire, Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds — and he was the second fastest, behind Ruth, to reach 600 home runs. Thirteen of those home runs were walk-offs, the most in major league history.