Cap Selection Announced for Randy Johnson

Remainder of Class of 2015 Hall of Fame Selections to Be Announced January 22

(COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.) – The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum has announced that an Arizona Diamondbacks logo will appear on the cap of the Hall of Fame plaque for 2015 Hall of Fame electee Randy Johnson. The cap selections for the remainder of the Hall of Fame Class of 2015 – Craig Biggio, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz – will be announced on January 22.

The Hall of Fame Class of 2015 will be formally inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday, July 26 in Cooperstown, N.Y., as the centerpiece of a four-day celebration of baseball and their careers as part of Hall of Fame Weekend 2015. Biggio, Johnson, Martinez and Smoltz were elected to the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on January 6.

“After reflecting the last week and conferring with the Hall of Fame, we’ve come to the decision that the Diamondbacks logo on my Hall of Fame plaque makes the most sense,” said Johnson. “I want to express my most sincere thanks to all the teams I played for – Montreal, Seattle, Houston, the New York Yankees and San Francisco – and particularly all of the fans for supporting me. I’m very humbled by this honor.”

Each Hall of Fame plaque will be revealed as the prelude to each electee’s induction speech on July 26. The Hall of Fame plaque, which serves to reflect the totality of a career, details an individual’s accomplishments in the game in approximately 90 words, while listing each team on which an individual played or managed. An artist rendering of the individual being honored tops the Hall of Fame plaque, and in many instances, a cap, where a logo may or may not featured, is included.

“The Museum staff works with each inductee by suggesting an appropriate logo option, or no logo at all,” said Jeff Idelson, President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. “For those whose most compelling contributions clearly took place with one team, a logo makes sense. For those whose careers were built significantly among multiple teams, not having a team logo is equally acceptable. Regardless of the selection, a Hall of Famer belongs to every team for which he played or managed, as well as every fan who followed his career.”

The four newest members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame will take their permanent place in Cooperstown on Sunday, July 26, with the ceremony beginning at 1:30 p.m. EDT – televised live on MLB Network, highlighting four days of celebratory events and programs for baseball fans of all ages, as part of Hall of Fame Weekend 2015, July 24-27.

Hall of Fame Weekend 2015 will also feature the Saturday, July 25 Awards Presentation, when J.G. Taylor Spink Award winner Tom Gage and Ford C. Frick Award winner Dick Enberg will each be honored. The Weekend will include family programming for baseball fans of all ages, including the July 25 Parade of Legends and a July 27 Legends of the Game Roundtable discussion event with the four inductees.

More than 50 Hall of Famers are expected to return for Hall of Fame Weekend, with the full list of returnees to be announced in early July, to honor the Class of 2015 at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is an independent not-for-profit educational institution, dedicated to fostering an appreciation of the historical development of baseball and its impact on our culture by collecting, preserving, exhibiting and interpreting its collections for a global audience as well as honoring those who have made outstanding contributions to our National Pastime. Opening its doors for the first time on June 12, 1939, the Hall of Fame has stood as the definitive repository of the game’s treasures and as a symbol of the most profound individual honor bestowed on an athlete. It is every fan’s "Field of Dreams," with its stories, legends and magic shared from generation to generation.