Kirk Gibson, fellow former major leaguers Felipe Alou, Ron LeFlore and Sean Doolittle and novelist W. P. Kinsell were inducted into The Baseball Reliquary’s Shrine of the Eternals Sunday at Whittier College.
The Shrine of the Eternals differs from the Hall of Fame by focusing on a person’s game-changing contributions that supersede statistical measures, with voting open to the public, not restricted to sportswriters and committees, according to Joe Price, the director of The Baseball Reliquary, which describes itself as “a Southern California-based organization dedicated to fostering an appreciation of American culture through the prism of baseball, especially the shapers of its history.”
Criteria for election to the Shrine are distinctiveness of play (good or bad), the uniqueness of character and personality and the imprint the individual has made on the baseball landscape, Price said.
Electees, both on and off the field, shall have been responsible for developing baseball through athletic and or business achievements, in terms of its larger cultural and sociological impact as mass entertainment and as an arena for the human imagination.
Previous inductees include Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson, Yogi Berra and Roberto Clemente, two stars banned from baseball and ineligible for the Hall of Fame until a rule change this year — Pete Rose and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson — and such offbeat selections as eccentric 1970s pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee, Ted Giannoulas — baseball’s first high-profile costumed mascot, the Famous Chicken — and the “Peanuts” character Charlie Brown.
Gibson forever earned a spot in baseball history for his game-winning pinch-hit home run with two outs and a full count in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series against future Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley of the Oakland Athletics.
It was Gibson’s only plate appearance in the Series because of injuries to his left hamstring and right knee suffered in the National League Championship Series.
Gibson played 17 seasons in the majors, making his debut with the Detroit Tigers in 1979, LeFlore’s last year with the team. He was the National League MVP in 1988, his first season with the Dodgers, leading their transformation from a 73-89 record the previous season to World Series champions.
Alou became the second Dominican to play Major League Baseball when he made his debut with the San Francisco Giants in 1958, two years after Ozzie Virgil Sr. played his first game with the New York Giants. Alou had 2,101 hits in a 17-year major league career with six teams. He led the National League in hits twice, once in runs and was a three-time selection for the All-Star Game.
His brothers Matty and Jesus also played in the majors. The three of them played in the outfield together for the final two innings of the Giants’ 13-5 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sept. 15, 1963, still the only all-brother outfield in MLB history.
Alou managed the Montreal Expos from 1992-2001 and the Giants from 2003-06. He and Hall of Famers Frank Robinson and Joe Torre are the only men with 2,000 hits, 200 home runs and 1,000 managerial victories.
LeFlore began his journey to the majors in a most unlikely spot, the State Prison of Southern Michigan, where he was serving a 5-to-15-year sentence for the armed robbery of a Detroit bar in which he carried a rifle.
Despite never previously playing organized baseball, LeFlore became the star of the prison’s baseball team. Jimmy Karalla, a fellow inmate, contacted a longtime friend, Jimmy Butsicaris, a co-owner of Detroit’s Lindell Athletic Club, a bar frequented by Detroit sports celebrities, according to an article on the Society for American Baseball Research’s website.
Butsicaris was a friend of then-Tigers manager Billy Martin, which led Martin to visit the prison, and to LeFlore’s tryout with the Detroit Tigers.
LeFlore was released from prison on July 2, 1973, and immediately signed a contract with the Tigers, who assigned him to their Clinton, Iowa affiliate of the Class-A Midwest League, which was managed by Jim Leyland, a future Hall of Famer.
LeFlore made his major league debut on Aug. 1, 1974, with the Tigers. He was selected for the American League all-star team in 1976. In 1978 he led the league with 68 stolen bases and 126 runs. He was in the top 10 in the league in hits each season from 1976 to 1979, finishing second in both in 1977 and 1978.
The Tigers traded LeFlore to the Montreal Expos following the 1979 season. He led the National League with 97 stolen bases in 1980, still record for the franchise which is now the Washington Nationals.
LeFlore concluded his nine-season major league career by playing for the Chicago White Sox in 1981 and 1982.
LeFlore was the subject of the 1978 CBS made-for-television movie, “One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story,” with LeVar Burton portraying him.
Kinsella’s main connection to baseball is his 1982 novel “Shoeless Joe,” which was adapted into the 1989 film “Field of Dreams.” He also wrote two other novels about baseball, “The Iowa Baseball Confederacy” and “Box Socials,” and nearly 40 short stories. He died in 2016 at the age of 81.
Gibson, Alou, LeFlore and Kinsella were elected to the Shrine of the Eternals in voting by members of The Baseball Reliquary this year. Doolittle was elected in 2024 but was unable to attend last year’s induction ceremony because of his job as the pitching strategist for the Washington Nationals.
Doolittle was called by Sports Illustrated the “conscience of baseball” for his support of the rights of workers, women, immigrants and statehood for the District of Columbia. He pitched in the major leagues for 11 seasons for four teams, was selected for the All-Star Game in 2014 and 2018 and was a member of Washington’s team that won the 2019 World Series.