Former New York Yankees player and manager Lou Piniella is one of eight finalists on the Baseball Hall of Fame’s contemporary era ballot for 2024, per USA Today.
The committee will vote on the finalists and any that pass the final vote will be announced in December and be inducted with the Class of 2024.
This ballot includes executives, managers and other baseball contributors. Two other finalists are umpires Joe West and Ed Montague.
Piniella has been on the veterans’ committee ballot twice and came within one vote of being inducted in 2018.
Piniella, 80, broke into baseball as a player with Baltimore in 1964, was the 1969 American League Rookie of the Year with Kansas City and spent the bulk of his playing career with the Yankees, as he played for them from 1974-84. The Yankees acquired him via trade.
In 11 seasons with the Yankees he was a .295 hitter who hit 57 home runs and 417 RBI. The outfielder was part of the Yankees’ World Series teams in 1977 and 1978. The Yankees won both series.
He remained with the Yankees after retirement as the team’s hitting coach, became the team’s manager from 1986-87 and then its general manager in 1988, before he returned to the bench to replace the fired Billy Martin. With the Yankees as a manager he was 224-193, but the Yankees failed to make the playoffs.
He found success as a manager away from New York. He led the Cincinnati Reds to the 1990 World Series title, where they swept the Oakland Athletics. He spent a decade with the Seattle Mariners, where he won three AL West titles and beat the Yankees in the 1995 Wild Card playoffs.
He spent three more seasons with the Tampa Bay Rays (2003-05) and four seasons with the Chicago Cubs (2007-10), the latter of which he led to two NL Central titles. His career managerial record was 1,835-1,713
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