Tony Oliva - Legacy

Legacy

During a 15-year career, Oliva batted .304 with 220 home runs, 947 RBIs, 870 runs, 1,917 hits, 329 doubles, 48 triples, and 86 stolen bases in 1,676 games played. Oliva was elected to the All-Star game his first eight seasons, surpassing Joe DiMaggio's previous record of six. After retiring, he served as a batting coach for the Twins. His number 6 jersey was retired by the Twins on July 14, 1991.

It is debated by many that Oliva deserves induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame because of his great offensive numbers in years that were heavily dominated throughout the league by great pitching. In 1981, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included him in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. They explained what they called "the Smoky Joe Wood Syndrome", in which a player of truly exceptional talent but whose career was curtailed by injury, in spite of not having had career statistics that would quantitatively rank him with the all-time greats, should still be included on their list of the 100 greatest players. Bill James, utilizing the Keltner list, determined that Oliva was a "viable Hall of Fame candidate", but ultimately did not endorse him as a Hall of Famer. Several contemporaries have endorsed his enshrinement in the Hall of Fame, including Tony Pérez, who mentioned in his 2000 induction speech that he hoped that Oliva would soon be in the Hall of Fame.

In the year 2000, Oliva was one of six members of the franchise voted and inducted into the initial class of the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame. Also inducted in 2000 were teammates Rod Carew and Harmon Killebrew, along with Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek and long time owner Calvin Griffith, who owned the Twins from 1961 to 1984.

On 8 April 2011, the Twins unveiled a statue of Oliva at Target Field coinciding with the team's 2011 home opener.