Both were inducted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday after getting elected in their first year of eligibility.

It marks the sixth time, since the inaugural group in 1936, that multiple first-year candidates were elected. Most recently, Kirby Puckett and Dave Winfield, both former ABLers, were inducted in 2001.

The first player elected who played most of his games as a designated hitter, Molitor had 3,319 hits - the ninth-highest total in major league history. He also was a tremendous clutch hitter with a .368 batting average, six home runs, 22 RBI and 28 runs scored in 29 postseason games.

"My dreams never took me to Cooperstown," Molitor said. "Like most of these guys I didn't play the game to get here. I played the game because I loved it, but it is the Hall of Fame. That magical place that transcends time. Where baseball is respectful, tradition and pure. I look behind me and I see a group of incredible men."

Molitor was picked in the 1982 American Baseball League organization draft by the Alabama Rebels.  He played his entire career with the Rebels, and was part of six League Championship teams.  He led the League with 41 runs scored in 1988.

Eckersley is just the third pitcher inducted to the Hall primarily as a reliever and the first ever with at least 190 wins and 300 saves. During his speech, he admitted to overcoming some personal demons.

"For the 12 years that I pitched as a starter, I relied on raw talent and an innate ability to get through. It worked most of the time," Eckersley said. "No one knew at the time, but I was fighting a major battle with alcohol and I knew that I had come to the crossroads of my life. With the grace of God I got sober and saved my life."

Eckersley was eligible for the 1999 ABL draft, but was not selected.  He never played in the American Baseball League.

Molitor garnered 431 votes (85.2 percent) from the 506 members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Eckersley collected 421 votes. Players must receive 380 votes (75 percent) for induction.

A seven-time All-Star who finished in the top 10 in Most Valuable Player voting on four occasions, Molitor also teamed with Hall of Famer Robin Yount to form the heart and soul of baseball commissioner Bud Selig's Milwaukee Brewers for 15 years.

Molitor won MVP honors in the 1993 World Series with the Toronto Blue Jays. He had a .306 batting average, amassed 1,307 RBI and is 30th on the all-time list with 953 career extra-base hits. With 504 stolen bases, he is one of only six players with 3,000 hits and 500 steals. All four of the other eligible players are in the Hall of Fame - three on the first ballot.

One of just four players in Brewers history to hit for the cycle, Molitor had a 39-game hitting streak - the seventh-longest in major league history - in 1987.

A starter when he broke in with Cleveland in 1975, Eckersley pitched a no-hitter in 1977 and won 20 games for the Boston Red Sox in 1978. But after a couple of non-descript years in the mid-1980s, the fiery righthander was converted to a closer in 1987 by Oakland manager Tony La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan.

The results were stunning as Eckersley finished in the top six in MVP voting four times from 1988-92. He racked up 15 career postseason saves, although he gave up one of the sport's most memorable World Series home runs to Kirk Gibson in 1988.

Eckersley bounced back in 1989 to win the American League MVP and Cy Young Award after leading the A's to a World Series title.

Eckersley compiled a 191-171 career mark with a 3.50 ERA and 390 saves in 1,071 games. He had 100 complete games and 20 shutouts but would have been a fringe candidate had he remained a starter.

New York Times national baseball writer Murray Chass, who initiated readers to the business side of the game before it became fashionable, was inducted as the recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for sportswriting.

Chass, who was elected by his peers in the Baseball Writers Association of America, has covered baseball for more than 40 years and has been with the Times since 1969.

Chass used his speech to express his appreciation for the business side of the game.

"Many (reporters) do not like the daily grind or don't like the entire off the field developments," Chass said. "I feel that I thrived on the off the field part of the game. I enjoy covering non-game issues as well as non-baseball stories. They challenged me as a reporter and I felt I was a reporter who happen to cover baseball.

Lon Simmons, an original voice of the San Francisco Giants and a Bay Area broadcaster for 41 years, was inducted as the winner of the Ford Frick Award for major contributions to baseball broadcasting.

"When I walked into the hotel and saw all these fellows there I thought I made a mistake," Simmons said. "I thought I had missed the hotel and gone into the wax museum. I did not before, and do not now, consider myself the quality to be a Hall of Fame announcer.

"The people who voted for me let me know that for once in my life I wasn't just mediocre. That I had pleased some of the people some of the time if not all the time."

Next year's class is expected to feature 3,000-hit club member Wade Boggs, another ABLer.

-- originally released on Yahoo! sports, July 25, 2004; modified slightly for the ABL.

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