Whitey Herzog makes four.
Will there be a fifth?
Today, in Cooperstown, N.Y., Herzog will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, becoming the fourth person to have played minor league or collegiate summer league baseball in Quincy to be honored in the game's birthplace.
The former St. Louis Cardinals manager joins reliever Bruce Sutter and outfielder Kirby Puckett as inductees, and Tony Kubek, who received the 2008 Ford Frick Award, given annually to a broadcaster who has impacted the game.
Kubek, like Herzog, played in Quincy when he was in the Yankees' farm system in the 1950s. Sutter was a member of the 1973 Quincy Cubs, and Puckett played for the Quincy Rivermen of the Central Illinois Collegiate League in 1981.
The chance of another player joining them?
Well, it's remote.
Consider Quincy first fielded a minor league team in 1883 when the Quincy Quincys were part of the Northwestern League. Quincy hosted a minor league team up until 1973, when the Quincy Cubs moved after nine years in the Midwest League.
In that span, according to research done at baseball-reference.com, Quincy fielded more than 60 minor league teams and had more than 1,500 players call the Gem City home.
Yet, only three have made it to Cooperstown.
Only one did it as a player.
The odds of that happening? Too miniscule to calculate.
It makes it even more difficult to determine if Quincy will produce another Hall of Famer.
Currently, four former Quincy Gems are on a major league baseball team's 40-man roster -- third baseman Adam Rosales with the A's, starting pitcher Bryan Bullington with the Royals, reliever Joe Thatcher with the Padres and reliever Dan Meyer with the Marlins.
Others have had chances, like Josh Rabe, the Unity and Quincy University product who played 38 games with the Minnesota Twins. None, though, have sustained a career worthy of inclusion in Cooperstown.
Not too many have.
When this year's class of inductees gets honored today, it raises the total number of individuals inducted into the Hall of Fame to 292, which includes 232 players, 20 managers, nine umpires and 31 pioneers and executives.
There have been more than 16,000 players reach the major league level in the game's history, meaning only .015 percent are good enough to be called Hall of Famers.
The odds of reaching the big leagues are tough enough. The odds of becoming a legend? Don't even try to gauge it.
Simply understand this: A baseball heritage is in place, and it's something this community can treasure.
