Adrián Beltré still hasn’t had the chance to fully grasp that he is now in baseball’s Hall of Fame. “I understand, and I know what that weekend was,” Beltré said. “But I’d be lying if I said that I have … It just hasn’t.”
Perhaps after being honored again by the Texas Rangers, the team he spent the longest time with during his 21 big league seasons.
Four weeks after his Hall of Fame induction in Cooperstown, the Rangers held several events to celebrate Beltré, including a ceremony before their game against Minnesota on Saturday night, where his Hall of Fame plaque was displayed at the ballpark.
“This was my last thing on the calendar, this weekend,” Beltré said. “After that, go home and be a dad and a husband again, and try to figure out when we can find a space for a little vacation. Because I need to just lay down on the beach a little bit.”
The Rangers, who retired his No. 29 jersey in 2019, surprised Beltré during the pregame ceremony by announcing plans for a bronze statue. The statue will be revealed next season outside Globe Life Field, where statues of Hall of Fame players Nolan Ryan and Iván “Pudge” Rodríguez are already located.
On his way from California to Cooperstown last month, Beltré stopped in Texas for several days as an ambassador for MLB’s All-Star Game hosted by his former team.
Beltré managed the American League team in the Futures Game, appeared with Commissioner Rob Manfred at MLB’s amateur draft, and then at the All-Star Game.
Five days before his own induction, he took part in the first-pitch ceremony with other former Rangers already in the Hall of Fame: pitchers Fergie Jenkins and Ryan, and catcher Rodríguez.
While the Hall of Fame events were surreal and a bit unclear for Beltré, he said that special moments from that weekend included having his family there and talking with Hall of Famers he admired: Dominican pitcher Juan Marichal and third baseman Mike Schmidt.
Beltré called the 86-year-old Marichal “the pinnacle of baseball in my country, the first Hall of Famer that we had.”
He had a photo taken with other Hall of Fame third basemen Schmidt, George Brett, Chipper Jones, and Scott Rolen.
After leaving Cooperstown and spending a few nights in New York City, Beltré went home and got so busy with his three kids—two in college and a teenage daughter—that they missed their planned vacation to Hawaii.
This weekend in Texas began with Beltré as the featured guest at the team’s annual Hall of Fame luncheon on Friday. The Rangers then set up two public display cases with memorabilia from his eight seasons with the team, including his 3,000th career hit, his 400th home run, and even a dirt-stained jersey from the second of his three career cycles.
“Special player, special talent,” said Josh Jung, the current Rangers third baseman.
“You knew it was a special career going on in front of you as you were watching it,” said Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, who played in the big leagues from 2003-10. “It wasn’t one of those, I wonder if this guy’s a special player or a unique guy in the clubhouse or a leader, anything like that. You just knew.”
