Major League Baseball

From Hank to Ozzie, Mobile has impressive legacy

Published Apr. 16, 2010 8:31 a.m. ET

foxsports

Reggie Jackson was dining with a couple of other future Hall of Famers one spring training in Arizona.

The young slugger hit it off well with Willie McCovey and Billy Williams, except for one thing.

``They said the only thing that was wrong with me was that I wasn't from Mobile,'' Jackson said.

McCovey and Williams were. So are plenty of other baseball greats - from Hank Aaron to Satchel Paige to Ozzie Smith.

They're all Hall of Famers and all from Alabama's port city, which has the most players enshrined per capita. The legacy was evident Wednesday when Aaron's childhood home, now a museum, was officially dedicated at Mobile's minor league Hank Aaron Stadium.

Ozzie Smith and Aaron were there. So was fellow Alabama native Willie Mays, along with four other Hall of Famers from out of state.

``We like to joke that there must be a river that runs from Cooperstown to Mobile because of all the Mobilians in the Hall of Fame, more than any other city in America,'' Hall of Fame President Jeff Idelson said. ``When you take the whole state of Alabama, you have nine from the whole state in Cooperstown. Baseball must be fairly prevalent here.''

Jackson marvels at the formidable presence in Cooperstown for the city of about 200,000.

``You guys have got an All-Star team,'' he said. Then he noted: ``They all play right field.''

Not all of them. Smith is regarded as one of the greatest defensive shortstops of all-time, and finished up 727 homers shy of Aaron's 755. Paige was a flamboyant, fireballer of a pitcher. McCovey belted 521 homers in a 22-year career mostly spent with the San Francisco Giants. Williams hit 426 homers with the Chicago Cubs and Oakland Athletics.

For those counting at home, that's 1,702 combined home runs for the three sluggers from Mobile.

``It's a great lineup,'' Idelson said. ``If you took the five players from Mobile who are in the Hall of Fame, you would have the start of a very impressive ballclub.''

The city also produced players like Tommie Agee, Cleon Jones and Amos Otis - who formed an all-Mobile outfield at times for the 1969 World Series champion New York Mets.

``It's rare to find that much talent from such a small part of the country,'' said Smith, whose family moved to Los Angeles when he was 6. ``If you take all the surrounding areas, I think you find great players from this region. To be one of those players, to be able to make it to the pinnacle of your sport, it's very special.''

Smith didn't get to watch Aaron and Mays in their prime, but he certainly knew about them.

``Knowing their legacies and reading about their accomplishments was part of the growing up process,'' he said. ``I've always admired them from a distance. Now, to be able to have a chance to spend time with them at the Hall of Fame and then things like this, this is the first time anything like this has ever happened.

``That's pretty special. I don't know if it'll happen with anybody else.''

Smith isn't sure why Mobile has produced such an array of baseball greats. If he had to pinpoint one common denominator among the group, it would be work ethic.

``Work ethic goes into what it is that we do,'' he said. ``If you look at all of those guys that have gone on and done great things in the game of baseball, they all approached it the same way. Getting the most out of our God-given talents and making sure we didn't cheat ourselves, and the result was we didn't cheat anybody else.

``The result was us making it to the Hall of Fame.''