Beltrán, Jones come face to face with immortality at Cooperstown

In the room that will soon serve as their forever home, Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones were surrounded by the plaques of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s previous 351 inductees.

It was one thing to get the Hall call Tuesday when the results of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s 2026 ballots were announced. It was quite another to actually be in the Hall itself, where their images and accomplishments will be hung on bronze plaques on oak walls after their July 26 induction ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y.

“I woke up this morning, and I was kind of like, ‘I’m in Cooperstown,’” Beltrán said at a Hall of Fame press conference Thursday. “It’s a dream come true.”

Added Jones: “We didn’t play the game to be here. We played the game to win. And this is the top honor that you can have.”

The Plaque Gallery is the home of the tiny fraction of baseball players who achieve that honor. But Beltrán and Jones, who will be inducted alongside Contemporary Baseball Era electee Jeff Kent, now hold a special place even within that small and fantastic fraternity.

For one, they were both center fielders.

Of the previous 278 player inductees in the Hall, only 22 were primary center fielders. And when you account for Beltrán and Jones getting in via the BBWAA ballot, they are in even rarer territory. In the time since Beltrán and Jones were born (incredibly, one day apart) in 1977, the BBWAA had previously voted in only four center fielders – Willie Mays ('79), Duke Snider ('80), Kirby Puckett (2001) and Ken Griffey Jr. ('16).

Their birthplaces are also of special note.

Jones will be the first inductee from the island of Curaçao, a fact that he referred to as “a great honor for me and my family.”

Beltrán has a little more company, joining previous Puerto Rican inductees Roberto Clemente, Orlando Cepeda, Roberto Alomar, Iván Rodríguez and Edgar Martínez. And after Beltrán toured the Hall on Thursday morning, it was not lost on him that more modern-day Latin players owe a great debt to those who paved the way and endured segregation and strife.

“The era where I played baseball is not the same era where those players played baseball,” Beltrán said. “Baseball really has evolved, and I'm grateful for all of them because they really designed a better path for players like me. … The fact that I played in an era where I was treated right, I was treated with respect, it really means a lot to me.”

Jones will obviously be the Braves’ latest Hall of Fame entrant, joining Atlanta teammates Chipper Jones, Fred McGriff, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and John Smoltz, as well as manager Bobby Cox and general manager John Schuerholz.

Beltrán, meanwhile, declined to commit himself to a cap for his plaque just yet. Though widely expected to go in as a Met – the team he was with for five of his nine All-Star seasons – Beltrán said he will let the process play out.

“That’s a decision that I would love to see that with my wife, Jessica, my kids,” Beltrán said. “So as soon as I go through the whole process here in Cooperstown, you guys will find out which hat I will wear.”

Whatever the cap displayed, a Hall of Fame plaque is the ultimate cap on a career. And for Beltrán and Jones, this first visit to Cooperstown as elected members of the Hall was a day to soak in what it means to have a place in that Plaque Gallery.

“Thank you to all the writers,” said Jones, “who gave me this opportunity to be here with all these legends in this room that are with us now or long gone.”