Jimmy Rollins on Wall of Fame induction: ‘I hope I don’t cry’

Jimmy Rollins wanted to wait.

The legendary Phillies shortstop solidified his place in the club’s Wall of Fame during his MVP season in 2007. A number of his teammates punched their ticket a year later when the 2008 Phillies won the World Series. A celebration of the era that led to five division titles, two World Series appearances, a championship and a 257-game sellout streak was inevitable. It was just a matter of when it was going to start.

The Phillies approached Rollins about a Wall of Fame induction years ago. He brushed it off.

“You have to wait until I’m 50,” Rollins said. “I’m too young.”

John Middleton called Rollins last year to tell him his idea: induct Rollins in 2024 and former team president David Montgomery in 2025. Rollins insisted that Montgomery, who passed away in 2019, should go in first on his own day. Rollins was selected to unveil Montgomery’s Wall of Fame plaque.

Rollins, now 46, received another call a year later.

“You don’t have a choice anymore,” Middleton told Rollins. “You can’t say no. You’re going in.” Rollins, along with former general manager Ed Wade, will be inducted into the Phillies Wall of Fame on Aug. 1, whether he likes it or not.

Rollins is curious to see what the day will be like. He hasn’t had time since the official announcement to think much about what he’ll say or how he’ll feel.

“It feels like I’m still close enough and young enough, although I’m really not, that I don’t know if it’s time for me to go in yet,” Rollins told Phillies Nation. “But it is. When that day comes, I’ll be excited. I’ve thought about it a little bit. Not what to say, just what the emotions are gonna be like. I hope I don’t cry. I don’t know. We’ll see when the time comes. It will be pure. It will be natural.”

Before making a stop in South Philly on Monday for a promotional event with Surfside at Chickie’s & Pete’s, he spent time in Japan going to art museums, meeting celebrity chefs and hanging out with his former teammate and now podcast partner Ryan Howard, who also works in the commissioner’s office with Rollins as league ambassadors. Rollins’ former double play partner Chase Utley holds a similar position in London.

Utley and Howard will surely be a part of the festivities this summer. The number retirement debate will be as well. No Phillies player has worn No. 11 since Rollins was traded after the 2014 season. Howard’s No. 6 and Utley’s No. 26 have also not been issued since both players left the Phillies. Cole Hamels’ No. 35 has been in circulation as recently as last season, but the last player to wear that number, David Dahl, gave it up when Hamels officially retired as a Phillie in June 2024.

The Phillies’ previous policy was to only retire numbers for players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. That changed when Dick Allen’s No. 15 was retired during the 2020 season as a way to both honor Allen while he was still alive and boost his Hall of Fame chances a year before a veterans committee was examined his case again.

Rollins said that he hasn’t had conversations with Middleton about the club retiring his number. Maybe it’s a surprise for Wall of Fame weekend. Or maybe the Phillies still haven’t made up their mind on what is the right way to honor a player like Rollins, a franchise icon who is first on the all-time hits leaderboard, but may not end up in the Hall of Fame.

Rollins jokingly compared it to another longstanding baseball tradition that came to an end this spring.

“If the Yankees can let guys wear beards and mustaches, I think the Phillies can reconsider retiring numbers,” Rollins said.

Middleton told The Athletic in 2021 that while the policy is no longer in place, it is reserved for players who are “Hall of Fame-worthy — legitimately, credibly Hall of Fame-worthy.”

It will take years to find out if Rollins is just that. He received only 14.8% of the vote in his fourth year on the ballot. He is likely to stay on it for all ten seasons of eligibility, but the path to election looks arduous. Rollins has longevity: He played 17 years as a shortstop and started in at least 140 games in 12 of those seasons. He has the hardware: An MVP, four Gold Gloves, a Silver Slugger Award and a World Series title. But Rollins isn’t an analytics darling. Having a career 95 OPS+ is probably what hurts him the most.

What could voters be missing if they only considered the numbers?

“Playing a premium position at a time where there were a lot of other good shortstops,” Rollins said. “What my ranks were during that era. Being a leader, being a winner and for those that have gotten to see me play, they know what I did to the game. The numbers, they can fall wherever they fall, but it was real work. And I think a lot of metrics are being used in a game that wasn’t played when I was playing. How do you compare guys from different eras? I guess that’s the best way, but it’s hard to even do that because guys weren’t constantly throwing 100 mph.

“The game is played completely different. But when you look at my body of work and you rank me amongst my peers and amongst the greats and the things I was able to accomplish in the game, some of them, it will probably be a long time before it’s done. I was the first 200-400 shortstop (200 home runs, 400 stolen bases). Thirty-eight game hitting streak, helping lead a franchise from mediocrity to the top and making them the talk of the East. I was a part of that.”

It’s easy to forget where the Phillies were as an organization when Rollins made his debut as a 21-year-old at Veterans Stadium in 2000. The Phillies went 65-97 that year. They had not had a winning season since 1993. Things were promised to be better once the new stadium was up in a few years. More stadium revenue turned into more spending, and the arrival of Jim Thome signaled to the sport that the Phillies were on the rise. That all helped, but what really propelled the team to relevancy was the wave of homegrown talent that became the core of the golden era of Phillies baseball. It began with Rollins, and it’s only appropriate that he leads off the celebration.

“It’s a lot of gratitude and a lot of hard work that went into that,” Rollins said.