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THE
BASEBALL RELIQUARY ANNOUNCES
MAURY WILLS,
PETE GRAY, AND TED GIANNOULAS
ELECTED TO THE
SHRINE OF THE ETERNALS
The Board of Directors of the Baseball
Reliquary, Inc., a Southern California-based
nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering an
appreciation of American art and culture through
the context of baseball history, is pleased to
announce the 2011 class of electees to the
Shrine of the Eternals.
The Shrine of the Eternals is the
national organization’s equivalent to the
Baseball Hall of Fame.
Maury Wills, Pete Gray, and Ted
Giannoulas were elected upon receiving the
highest number of votes in balloting conducted
during the month of April 2011 by the membership
of the Baseball Reliquary.
The three electees will be formally
inducted into the Shrine of the Eternals in a
public ceremony on Sunday, July 17, 2011 at the
Donald R. Wright Auditorium in the Pasadena
Central Library, Pasadena, California.
Of the fifty eligible candidates on the
2011 ballot, Maury Wills received the highest
voting percentage, being named on 37% of the
ballots returned.
Following Wills were Pete Gray with 35%
and Ted Giannoulas with 34%.
Runners-up in this year’s election
included Dizzy Dean (33%), Jim “Mudcat” Grant
(30%), Luis Tiant (30%), Don Zimmer (27%), Glenn
Burke (26%), Rube Foster (26%), and Charlie
Brown (24%).
Voting percentages for all fifty
candidates appear at the end of this
announcement.
Elected to the Shrine of the Eternals in
only his second year on the ballot (he was named
on 29% of the ballots in 2010),
MAURY
WILLS is universally credited with returning
the stolen base as an offensive weapon to the
National League in the 1960s and setting the
table for future speedsters Lou Brock, Tim
Raines, and Rickey Henderson.
Born in 1932, the Washington, D.C. native
spent nearly ten years in the minor leagues
before he got his shot as a rookie with the Los
Angeles Dodgers in 1959.
The fleet, switch-hitting shortstop
pilfered 50 bases in 1960, the most ever by an
NL player since Max Carey in 1923.
The run-starved Dodgers of the 1960s
turned Wills loose at every opportunity.
Between 1960 and 1965, Wills led the NL
in thefts in six consecutive seasons, including
a then-record 104 stolen bases in 1962 on his
way to copping the NL’s Most Valuable Player
Award.
Wills’s legs led the Dodgers to three
World Series appearances in 1963, 1965, and
1966.
He also received many other kudos,
including Gold Gloves, All-Star Game
nominations, and an All-Star Game MVP.
Wills finished his playing career in 1972
(which also included stints with the Pirates and
Expos), winding up with 586 stolen bases to
complement a .281 lifetime batting average.
Wills briefly managed the Seattle
Mariners in 1980-81, was a baseball analyst for
NBC Sports, watched his son Bump mature into a
major league infielder, worked as a trainer for
numerous MLB teams, and taught the art of base
stealing in Osaka, Japan.
Wills currently works with a variety of
philanthropic organizations, drug abuse
programs, and children’s groups.
Now in his late seventies, life hasn’t
slowed down a whit for Maury Wills – he remains
a man on the go, go, go.
Elected to the Shrine of the Eternals in
his thirteenth appearance on the ballot (Rube
Foster, Effa Manley, and Rube Waddell are the
only other candidates to have appeared on every
ballot since 1999),
PETE GRAY
(1915-2002) remains the lasting symbol of
baseball and World War II.
The one-armed outfielder (he lost his
right arm in a childhood accident) was a
semi-pro star in the coal towns of his native
Pennsylvania and with the famed Brooklyn
Bushwicks.
Gray entered professional baseball in
1942, garnering national attention in 1944 when
he batted .333 for the Memphis Chicks, hit five
home runs, tied a league record by stealing 68
bases, and was named the Southern Association’s
Most Valuable Player.
This extraordinary season earned Gray a
shot with the St. Louis Browns in 1945.
Even with the quality of major league
play at an all-time low due to the World War II
player shortage, Gray was clearly overmatched at
this level, hitting .218 with no home runs in 77
games.
Nonetheless, Gray was a wonder to watch,
and was a study in agility and dexterity as an
outfielder.
After catching a fly ball, Gray would
tuck his glove under his stump, roll the ball
across his chest, and throw, all in one nimble
and fluid motion.
When baseball returned to full strength
in 1946, Gray returned to the minors, and he
barnstormed with exhibition teams for several
more years until retiring to his hometown of
Nanticoke, Pennsylvania.
Gray’s major league career, albeit brief,
was an astonishing and inspirational triumph of
will, causing
Washington Post sports columnist Shirley Povich to remark, “What
Gray might have accomplished in the big leagues
if blessed with two arms is something for the
imagination to play with.
Surely he would have been one of the
greatest big leaguers of all time.”
Elected to the Shrine of the Eternals in
his ninth year on the ballot,
TED
GIANNOULAS is one of baseball’s greatest
entertainers as The San Diego Chicken (or The
Famous Chicken), the most popular and iconic of
the mascots that became staples of major league
baseball teams in the 1970s.
In 1974, while a student at San Diego
State University, Giannoulas took a $2-an-hour
job during spring break, wearing a rented
chicken suit for local radio station KGB-FM and
passing out promotional eggs at the San Diego
Zoo.
That gig was so successful that he decided to
give the act a try at home games of the San
Diego Padres, who were so woeful that they were
willing to consider just about anything to boost
attendance.
In no time at all, the Chicken was
running circles around the Padres’ then-mascot,
the pudgy and balding Swinging Friar.
In his book,
Big Hair
and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball
and America in the Swinging ‘70s, Dan
Epstein notes, “It was love at first cluck
between the KGB Chicken and Padres fans, who
loudly cheered the Chicken’s every pratfall and
prank – especially when the latter came at the
expense of the umpires and visiting players.”
The Chicken would soon become an
entertainment revolution, with people coming to
the ballpark to see him as much as to see the
game, maybe more.
To many fans, the Chicken became a
virtual folk hero, mocking the ceremonious,
parodying the powerful, and cavorting with
gleeful irreverence.
Even the Federal courts sanctioned the
Chicken’s shtick.
In 1999, when the creators of Barney the
Dinosaur sued Giannoulas for pummeling a Barney
lookalike, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals ruled in the Chicken’s favor, citing
“he was engaged in a sophisticated critique of
society’s acceptance of this ubiquitous and
insipid creature,” thus giving him the legal
go-ahead to continue stomping on the annoying
purple dinosaur’s head at ballparks from coast
to coast.
Giannoulas’s comic and mime abilities,
painstaking work ethic, and tolerance for heat
stress conditions have earned him the reputation
as the “Sir Laurence Olivier of mascots.”
He prides himself in not missing an
engagement in over three decades and in
developing an extraordinary relationship with
the fans; the Chicken is often seen signing
autographs at ballparks well past midnight, long
after the players have gone home.
Maury Wills, Pete Gray, and Ted
Giannoulas will join thirty-six other baseball
luminaries who have been inducted into the
Shrine of the Eternals since elections began in
1999, including, in alphabetical order, Jim
Abbott, Dick Allen, Roger Angell, Emmett
Ashford, Moe Berg, Yogi Berra, Ila Borders, Jim
Bouton, Jim Brosnan, Bill Buckner, Roberto
Clemente, Steve Dalkowski, Rod Dedeaux, Jim
Eisenreich, Dock Ellis, Mark Fidrych, Curt
Flood, Josh Gibson, William “Dummy” Hoy,
Shoeless Joe Jackson, Bill James, Bill
“Spaceman” Lee, Roger Maris, Marvin Miller,
Minnie Minoso, Buck O’Neil, Satchel Paige, Jimmy
Piersall, Pam Postema, Jackie Robinson, Lester
Rodney, Pete Rose, Casey Stengel, Fernando
Valenzuela, Bill Veeck, Jr., and Kenichi
Zenimura.
In the coming weeks, leading up to the
Shrine of the Eternals Induction Day on July 17,
2011, further details will be announced,
including the Keynote Speaker and the recipients
of the 2011 Hilda Award (named in memory of
Hilda Chester and honoring a baseball fan’s
exceptional devotion to the game) and the 2011
Tony Salin Memorial Award (presented annually to
an individual dedicated to the preservation of
baseball history).
THE
SHRINE OF THE ETERNALS:
2011 VOTING PERCENTAGES
Maury Wills – 37%
Pete Gray – 35%
Ted
Giannoulas – 34%
Dizzy Dean – 33%
Jim
“Mudcat” Grant – 30%
Luis Tiant – 30%
Don
Zimmer – 27%
Glenn Burke – 26%
Rube Foster
– 26%
Charlie Brown – 24%
Dr. Frank Jobe –
23%
Eddie Feigner – 22%
Effa Manley – 22%
Manny Mota – 22%
Ernie Harwell – 21%
Vic
Power – 20%
Eliot Asinof – 19%
Fred Merkle
– 19%
J.R. Richard – 19%
Dr. Mike Marshall
– 18%
Annie Savoy – 18%
Chet Brewer – 17%
Rube Waddell – 17%
Charles M. Conlon – 16%
Phil Pote – 16%
Dan
Quisenberry – 16%
Helen Callaghan – 15%
Tug McGraw – 15%
John Montgomery Ward – 15%
Fay Vincent – 14%
Lisa Fernandez – 12%
Rusty Staub – 12%
Steve Blass – 11%
Jefferson Burdick – 11%
Bucky Dent – 11%
Hector Espino – 11%
Curtis Pride – 10%
Wilbur Wood – 10%
Donald Fehr – 9%
Conrado Marrero – 9%
David Wells – 9%
Chuck Stevens – 8%
L.
Robert Davids – 6%
Ed Delahanty – 6%
J.L.
Wilkinson – 5%
Frank C. Bancroft – 4%
Charles “Pop” Kelchner – 4%
Bob Hope – 3%
Eddie Grant – 1%
Charlie Hollocher – 1%
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