Schuerholz’s legacy worthy of Cooperstown

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Want to know how smart John Schuerholz is?

Smart enough to know he’s not the smartest guy in the room.

Or, at least, he doesn’t act like it.

“It is one thing to be the smartest guy in the room,” said Dick Balderson, a long-time associate with Schuerholz from the days they spent in the Royals and Braves organizations. “It is another thing to be the smartest guy and let others think they are.

“John has that special ability to make everybody he is associated with feel special.”

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Right now, it’s Schuerholz who is feeling special.

Fifty years after giving up his job as a school teacher in Baltimore to take an entry-level position with the Orioles, Schuerholz was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, a unanimous selection by the Today’s Game Era Committee.

He has become best known for his role as the general manager of an Atlanta Braves franchise that finished first 14 consecutive seasons, a streak unmatched in professional sports, but he also was the scouting director and later general manager for a Royals team that made seven postseason appearances in a 10-year stretch that was capped off with a World Series title in 1985.

Schuerholz shared the dais during a news conference at MLB’s Winter Meetings on Monday with fellow Hall of Fame electee Bud Selig, the man who brought big league baseball back to Milwaukee in 1970 and then put together arguably the most impactful tenure as MLB Commissioner in the history of the game.

It was Schuerholz, however, who was named on all 16 ballots that were cast by a committee made up of former players, club executives and media members, one more than Selig.

Schuerholz was humbled by the experience. But he …

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