Padres honoring Ted Williams is right on many levels

On the day the Yankees visit Petco Park, the Padres will open their Hall of Fame by honoring a Red Sox legend.

They got the name of the place correct, finally expunging Bud Selig from the plaza. But did the Padres choose the right player to make the team’s next Hall of Famer – not to mention first inductee into an actual Hall?

The answer is affirmative – even as that forces everyone to acknowledge what a sad history our major-league team has forged.

Ted Williams made no apologies in life and would not have needed to offer one for this. The Splendid Splinter is bigger than which uniform he wore in his 19 major-league seasons, especially here.

He was a San Diegan, a military man and a Padre. One of the first Padres and, though he was 17 years old and it was eight decades ago, one of the best.

The only way Williams could be more woven into our city’s fabric is if when he retired from baseball in 1960 he had suited up for the Chargers for their inaugural season at Balboa Stadium in ’61.

Still, the section of the Padres media guide explaining the purpose of and qualifications for the Padres Hall of Fame states it “honors players, coaches and executives who have contributed to the organization’s growth and success since San Diego entered the Major Leagues in 1969.”

The closest Williams came to contributing to the major-league Padres was in his close friendship with Tony Gwynn. Perhaps that relationship between arguably the two best pure hitters in history should not be discounted. But it is a dubious qualification for entry into a franchise’s holy place.

Look, this isn’t a molehill on which to die. It’s not the right to choose. This will not keep anyone from getting to heaven.

But it is odd enough that it should be addressed. And it says as much about the lack of history as it does about the history of professional baseball in San Diego.

Simply put, the Padres changed the qualifications when they decided to open an actual Hall of Fame, as they will with a ceremony Friday afternoon. The selection of Williams was consistent, according to chief marketing officer Wayne Partello, with the team’s decision to expand the mission of its Hall of Fame to celebrating professional baseball in San Diego from its inception.

In an on-field ceremony before Friday night’s game, Williams will be inducted as the 12th member of the Hall, which previously was basically a set of locker-type shrines in a bar inside the Western Metal Supply Co. building.

Williams will be honored both for his time as a member of the minor-league Pacific Coast League Padres in 1936 and ‘37 and for his contributions to baseball, including his role in making the original Padres a hit in San Diego.

Williams grew up in North Park and attended Hoover High before going on to become the perhaps the greatest hitter ever and the last to hit .400 in a season. He was the youngest youngest player in the PCL by four years – and 10 years younger than the league average – when he signed with the new professional team in his hometown. He hit .271 over 42 games in the portion of the ‘36 season he played. The next year, he hit. 291 with 23 home runs, and the Padres won the PCL title.

He signed a major league contract with Boston in 1938 and played 19 seasons there. His Hall of Fame career – .344 batting average, 521 homers and a .482 on-base percentage that is the highest ever achieved – wrapped around two stints as a Marine pilot, a trainer of pilots in World War II and a pilot who flew 39 combat missions in the Korean War.

Bill Center, former Union-Tribune sportswriter and now the de facto Padres historian, said when the Padres revealed they were inducting Williams that he figuratively slapped his head and said, “Son of a gun, that’s a good idea.”

And, to be clear, it was the Padres who decide the inductees. They do so with the input of the local chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. However, while some of the writers concurred regarding Williams, he was not among the organization’s recommendations. (The top vote getter, by far, was Ken Caminiti, who will be inducted Aug. 6.)

It’s not a bad idea. Again, that is partly because glorifying the contributors to a major-league franchise that has made the playoffs five times in 47 years severely limits the options.

Certainly, as much as when welcoming any other visitor, this shines a pathetically contrasting spotlight on the Padres’ lack of historically significant players.

The inescapable truth is that the induction of Williams is not wrong. It’s actually utterly appropriate.