Mike Mussina is officially a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Normally stoic, Mussina couldn't help but to smile as his former Yankees manager Joe Torre talked about his great career on a video before his speech. When accepting his plaque, that smile never left his face.
It was only until he began his induction speech that he went back to that serious manner to explain how his journey began up until this moment in Cooperstown on Sunday.
"My baseball journey began in backyards of our neighborhood back in my hometown of Montoursville, Pennsylvania," Mussina said. "Montoursville is located right next to Williamsport -- the home of Little League Baseball. And both are connected to Cooperstown by about a 200-mile stretch of the Susquehanna River. Before I was old enough to play organized baseball, it was all about wiffle ball. Even after I was old enough to play organized, we still ruined people's yards with wiffle ball games.
Mike Mussina's baseball career started with his mother making sure he returned to the field for his first Little League practice. #HOFWKND pic.twitter.com/VaS1jNrXoe
- MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) July 21, 2019
"Moose," as he was affectionately known throughout his career, had a great anecdote about when he started playing organized baseball and was set to go to his first practice.
"In fact, at 8 years old, I barely made it to my first organized team practice," he began to explain. "I rode my bike the four or five blocks to the field at the elementary school. I was so excited to go I arrived so early that there was no one else there. I did not even get off my bike. I just turned around and rode back home, and as I pull into our yard, my mom looked at me and asked the obvious question: 'What are you doing here?' And my response was 'Obviously, there wasn't anybody there.'
"'Well get back on your bike and go back to the field.' Well luckily I did and my baseball career got better once I made it back to that first practice."
From there, Mussina would go on to talk about his high school days, his decision to leave Pennsylvania for a college career at Stanford University, and eventually talk about his days in the Majors.
Playing 18 years as a starter, Mussina basically split his time with the Orioles and Yankees. And it is because of that love for both teams that Moose didn't want to be inducted with a specific team on his plaque.
A five-time All-Star and seven-time Gold Glove winner, Mussina never won a Cy Young award, but he did finish in the Top 5 six different times. He finished his career with a career 3.68 ERA in 563 career starts. His lone relief appearance came in the 2003 ALDS against the Red Sox that got Roger Clemens out of a jam, a crucial outing for the Yankees success in that series.