Mike Mussina, the right-handed pitcher who anchored the Orioles rotation in the 1990s and remains the last homegrown ace the franchise developed, will join Mariano Rivera, Roy Halladay and Edgar Martinez in the Baseball Hall of Fame's Class of 2019.
Mussina's election, which came on the annual balloting of vested members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, came on his sixth of 10 possible years on the ballot, and by a narrow margin. A 75 percent vote threshold is required for election to the Hall of Fame, in this case 319 votes out of the 425 ballots cast. Mussina ended up earning 76.7 percent of the vote, earning a spot in the Hall of Fame by seven votes.
He'll be the third former Oriole in this induction class, as outfielder-designated hitter Harold Baines and reliever Lee Smith were selected by the Today's Game Era Committee last month.
Mussina is the 17th Hall of Fame player to suit up for the Orioles, and the fifth to begin his career in Baltimore _ the others being Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken Jr.
"He pitched in a very difficult era," Palmer said. "The strike zone was smaller. Hitters were bigger and stronger for whatever reason. ... But he pitched in that era, and he was a marvelous pitcher. I always thought that he'd be a Hall of Fame pitcher."
"I am so excited for Moose and his family," Ripken said in a statement. "Having played with Mike for 10 seasons, I have always believed he was a Hall of Fame pitcher. He had some of the best stuff I had ever seen, and he was a true number one starter for a very long time. His consistency and his ability to pitch so well in big games always amazed me. Mike was a great teammate, and I look forward to seeing him in Cooperstown in July"
Mussina, 50, joins their hallowed company after spending the first decade of his career in an Orioles uniform, helping the team move into Camden Yards and leading a pair of playoff rotations in 1996 and 1997. While in Baltimore, he was a five-time All-Star and finished in the top five in Cy Young Award voting five times, finishing second in 1999.
He finished his time with the Orioles with 147 wins against 81 losses with a 3.53 ERA, 45 complete games and 15 shutouts on his resume. The New York Yankees signed him as a free agent ahead of the 2001 season on a six-year, $88.5 million contract. And he hardly missed a step once he put on pinstripes. Mussina had four seasons with a sub-4.00 ERA out of eight years in New York, capping it in 2008 with his first 20-win season in a league-leading 34 starts with a 3.37 ERA.
While his 20-win season was a nice way to end things, it was the only one of his career _ one that despite pitching on nine playoff teams in 18 seasons and making at least 30 starts in 12 seasons didn't get him to the 300-win mark that serves as a customary benchmark for starting pitchers to make the Hall of Fame. He also never won a Cy Young Award, led the league in wins once (19 in 1995), and was 7-8 lifetime in the playoffs, albeit with a 3.42 ERA and a 1.103 WHIP.
Palmer, the current MASN analyst, was attempting his comeback in 1991 when Mussina was in camp trying to make the club and knew exactly what he was seeing.
"I saw how good he was," Palmer said. "He had a fabulous windup, he repeated it, he was quick to the plate, so you couldn't run on him. For a lot of the years, he would end up playing on good teams, some teams not so good, but he could get you out three or four different ways.
"He came up with a little bit of a cutter and a great knuckle-curveball, had a great changeup, and he could pitch in and out. What more do you need? Also, if you throw 91-95 mph, whatever it was. ... He didn't have the most movement _ (Greg) Maddux dropped his arm angle so he got a little more movement, but what did they have in common? They could dot an I and cross a T at home plate with the best of them."
Maddux is one of the pitchers whose heyday came in the 1990s and 2000s who Mussina will join in the Hall of Fame, along with Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson. Halladay, who died in a plane crash in 2017, also joins his peers posthumously.
Three others with Orioles connections were on the ballot, with pitcher Curt Schilling seeing a bump to 60.9 percent of ballots from 51.2 percent in 2018, Sammy Sosa climbing slightly from 7.8 percent to 8.5 percent, and Miguel Tejada fell off the ballot after failing to hit the five-percent threshold with five votes.
The induction ceremony will be held July 21 in Cooperstown, N.Y.
