Earlier baseball encyclopedias listed his birth year as 1940. In his autobiography Tony O!: The Trials and Triumphs of Tony Oliva (1973), Oliva claims that he was Pedro Oliva’s second son, born in 1941. So the elder Oliva, by using his brother’s papers, forever became known as Tony Oliva instead of Pedro Oliva. Oliva did not have a birth certificate but his younger brother Antonio did and he borrowed Antonio’s birth certificate to get a passport. According to his SABR bio, it’s unclear whether the Twins knew he was 22 (instead of 19) at the time of his signing but the preponderance of evidence supports the theory that he was believed to have been born in 1941.īecause of the 1959 Castro revolution in Cuba, getting out of the country was an issue in the spring of 1960. When he was signed by the Minnesota Twins in 1961, he was actually 22 years old. As it has been for many players from the Caribbean, for many decades Oliva was believed to have been born three years later. He was the third of ten children, the oldest of four boys. The son of Pedro Oliva and Maria Lopez, Oliva’s given birth name was Pedro Oliva II. Tony Oliva was born on July 20, 1938, in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. The “case for/against” is left mostly intact. It has been updated with the news of Oliva’s election to the Hall of Fame. This piece was originally posted in December 2020. right fielders in putouts six times and in assists twice
Oliva was elated when, on Sunday, he got the call from the Hall of Fame’s Chairman of the Board, Jane Forbes Clark. But all of that disappointment was erased with Sunday’s happy news. Oliva was openly disappointed, even bitter, at falling just one vote shy of the Hall. Kaat got 10 votes with Wills getting 9, Minoso 8. In a vote that will forever be infamous, Oliva and Allen each received 11 votes, one measly vote shy of the 12 required for a Cooperstown plaque. For that committee vote (called the “Golden Era” Committee), Oliva was on a ballot that included Allen, Wills, Hodges, Boyer, Minoso, Kaat, Pierce, Luis Tiant, and Bob Howsam. Then 76 years old, the Cuban-born Oliva was last on a “second chance” ballot for Cooperstown in December 2014.
The other candidates were Ken Boyer, Maury Wills, Roger Maris, Billy Pierce, and Danny Murtaugh. Minoso was elected with 14 votes, while Dick Allen fell one vote shy, with 11 votes. On the Golden Days ballot, Oliva, Kaat, and Hodges made it to the Hall of Fame “on the number,” with each player getting 12 out of 16 votes (75%) from the committee members, the minimum vote tally required for a plaque in Cooperstown.
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The other inductions will be made posthumously, to first baseman Gil Hodges, left fielder Minnie Minoso, Negro Leagues player/manager/ambassador Buck O’Neil, and a 19th-century legend, Bud Fowler, the first black professional baseball player.
The two former Twins are part of a Class of six inductees (so far) for the Hall’s Class of 2022.
Oliva (who turned 83 this July), will be joined on stage next summer in Cooperstown, New York by his longtime Twins teammate, pitcher Jim Kaat. On Sunday, former Minnesota Twins right fielder Tony Oliva, 45 years after playing his final game in Major League Baseball, was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum by the Golden Days Eras Committee.
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