White Sox legend Minnie Minoso elected to baseball's Hall of Fame

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. - White Sox legend Minnie Minoso and five other players were elected Sunday to the baseball Hall of Fame as two special committees met in Orlando, Fla.

Minoso was the White Sox's first Black player. His MLB career spanned 31 years in which he went .299 with 2,110 hits, 195 homers and 1,093 RBI.

Also elected Sunday was Buck O'Neil, a champion of Black ballplayers during a monumental, eight-decade career on and off the field. O'Neil was a Negro League player and manager hired by the Cubs in 1962 as major league baseball's first Black coach, six years after the team signed him as a scout.

Those chosen Sunday also include Jim Kaat - who played two seasons with the Sox - Gil Hodges, Tony Oliva and Bud Fowler.

Oliva and Kaat are the only living new members. White Sox slugger Dick Allen, who died last December, fell one vote shy of election.

The 16-member Early Days and Golden Days committees met separately Sunday. The election announcement was originally scheduled to coincide with the big league winter meetings, which were nixed because of the MLB lockout.

The six newcomers will be enshrined in Cooperstown on July 24, 2022, along with any new members elected by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. First-time candidates David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez join Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling on the ballot, with voting results on Jan. 25.

• Daily Herald staff writer Steve Zalusky contributed to this report.