Todd Helton, new Baseball Hall of Famer, chose the right sport after all

COOPERSTOWN — When the starting quarterback hurt his knee in the 1994 opener at UCLA, a second-string junior was a willing Volunteer to step in for Tennessee after two seasons as a backup.

Guy named Todd Helton.

But that former high school All-American QB hurt his knee in his third start and the next replacement stepped in. And that freshman worked out OK.

Guy named Peyton Manning.

Helton focused on his other sport at Tennessee — baseball.

His final career passing numbers with the Volunteers looked like this: 12 games, 41-for-75, 484 yards, four touchdowns, three interceptions. So does he ever think about what might have been in football?

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Helton said Saturday, “because I was terrible.”

He was rather good at baseball, though. Helton was the eighth overall pick in the 1995 MLB Draft by the Colorado Rockies and made his debut in 1997. The first baseman stayed with the Rockies for his entire 17-season career, batting .316. He was a five-time All-Star, a four-time Silver Slugger winner, a three-time Gold Glove recipient and a one-time batting champ.

And on Sunday, he will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, part of a foursome with Joe Mauer, Adrian Beltre and Jim Leyland.

“Everybody’s been very gracious, very kind, very welcoming, and that has made it a lot easier,” Helton said during a media session at Clark Sports Center, where the ceremony will be held. “I was really nervous about meeting a lot of the other Hall of Famers, and they’ve been great.”

Helton got to join the club on his sixth try via the BBWAA ballot. Mauer and Beltre made it the first chance they got.

Mauer currently is the youngest Hall of Famer at age 41. Like Helton, he played his entire career with one team. His happened to be his home-area team in Minnesota.

The St. Paul native, who moved to first base later in his career, is the lone catcher to earn three batting titles and the lone player to primarily be a catcher and have at least 2,000 hits (2,123), a .300 average (.306) and a .380 on-base percentage (.388).

Mauer did that over 15 seasons with the Twins. The thought of playing elsewhere did cross his mind, though.

“I think that’s part of being human, I guess,” he said. “You think about that or people will bring that up. But when it comes down to it, ultimately, I never wanted to leave.”

Leyland, who was voted into the Hall by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, managed four teams over 22 seasons and won 1,769 games (he ranks 18th in MLB history), six division titles, three pennants and one World Series crown. That championship came with the 1997 Florida Marlins.

Beltre played for four teams over 21 seasons. He’s the only primary third baseman with at least 3,000 hits (3,166) and 450 homers (477). The five-time Gold Glove winner is only the fifth Dominican Hall of Famer.

“I’m proud to be [the] fifth,” Beltre said, “but I’m looking forward to seeing a lot more.”