By Kenny Lacy Jr.

Associated Press

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. (AP) — Adrian Beltré, Joe Mauer and Todd Helton were pegged as athletic phenoms from a young age and all three lived up to expectations with their induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday.

Perrysburg native Jim Leyland was elected by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee. He managed for 22 seasons, won three Manager of the Year awards, the 1997 World Series, had a 1,769-1,728 career record as a manager and was the manager of the U.S. Olympic team in 2017 when the Americans won their only World Baseball Classic.

Leyland made sure to acknowledge the importance of the fans to the game of baseball.

“No matter which Hall of Famer you’re here to support today, or which team you cheer for, your presence is always felt,” Leyland said.

“On your feet in the ninth with the home team clinging to a one-run lead, turning on your television for the first game in the World Series and seeing 50,000 fans hoping and praying that this may be their year, or a little boy or girl getting their first autograph scurrying back to the stands to show mom and dad what they just did.

“Ladies and gentlemen, that’s you. That’s baseball. And this is the Hall of Fame.”

An entertaining and at-times crusty manager who led the Florida Marlins to a World Series title in 1997 and won 1,769 regular-season games over 22 seasons, Leyland received 15 of 16 votes from the contemporary era committee for managers, executives and umpires. He becomes the 23rd manager in the hall.

Honest, profane and constantly puffing on a cigarette, Leyland embodied the image of the prickly baseball veteran with a gruff but wise voice. He is 18th on the career list for manager wins but is second behind Joe McCarthy among those who never played in the major leagues. He also was ejected 73 times, tied with Clark Griffith for 10th in major league history.

Leyland’s players included Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, Larry Walker, Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer.

“I think young people, young players are searching for discipline,” Leyland said. “So we all have our insecurities and I think even sometimes players do, even though they’re great players. And I think that they’re always looking for that leadership. I tried to impress on them what it was to be a professional and how tough this game is to play. And I also told them almost every day how good they were.”

Leyland managed Pittsburgh, Florida, Colorado and Detroit from 1986 to 2013. He was a minor league catcher and occasional third baseman in the Tigers organization from 1965-70, never rising above Double-A and finishing with a .222 batting average, four homers and 102 RBIs.

“Being not a very good player myself, I realized how hard it was to play the game,” he said.

Leyland coached in the Tigers minor league system, then started managing with Bristol of the Appalachian Rookie League in 1971. After 11 seasons as a minor league manager, he left the Tigers to serve as Tony La Russa’s third base coach with the Chicago White Sox from 1982-85, then embarked on a major league managerial career that saw him take over the Pirates from 1986-96.

The Pittsburgh Press was said to have run a headline: “Jim Who?”

“Yeah, it was `Jim Who?’ when I got here and, you know, I’m still here,” Leyland said. “At least people know me a little better than they did when I first got here.”

Pittsburgh got within one out of a World Series trip in 1992 before Francisco Cabrera’s two-run single in Game 7 won the NL pennant for Atlanta. The Pirates sank from there following the departures of Bonds and ace pitcher Doug Drabek as free agents, and Leyland left after Pittsburgh’s fourth straight losing season in 1996. Five days following his last game, he chose the Marlins over the White Sox, Red Sox and Angels.

Florida won the title the next year in the franchise’s fifth season, the youngest expansion team to earn a championship at the time. But the Marlins sold off veterans and tumbled to 54-108 in 1998, and Leyland left for the Rockies. He quit after one season, saying he lacked the needed passion, and worked as a scout for the St. Louis Cardinals.

“I did a lousy job my last year of managing,” Leyland said then. “I stunk because I was burned out. When I left there, I sincerely believed that I would not manage again. … I always missed the competition, but the last couple of years — and this stuck in my craw a little bit — I did not want my managerial career to end like that.”

He replaced Alan Trammell as Tigers manager ahead of the 2006 season and stayed through 2013.

Leyland’s teams finished first six times and went 1,769-1,728. He won American League pennants in 2006, losing to St. Louis in a five-game World Series, and 2012, getting swept by San Francisco. Leyland was voted Manager of the Year in 1990, 1992 and 2006, and he managed the U.S. to the 2017 World Baseball Classic championship, the Americans’ only title.

Now he’s alongside the elite.

“It’s the final stop,” Leyland said. “To land there in Cooperstown, it doesn’t get any better than that. I mean, that’s the ultimate. I certainly never thought it was going to happen. Most people probably don’t. But it did, and I’m sure I’m going to enjoy it.”

( — AP writer Ronald Blum contributed)