TAMPA – Joan Hodges had no words to explain how she felt. Only tears.

“What else can she say?” Joan’s daughter Irene told me yesterday afternoon. “This is a tough day. This is a shock. My mother is so upset she can’t talk.”

This was 30 minutes after the Hall of Fame announced that the veterans committee had elected no one to Cooperstown.

Gil Hodges had fallen 11 votes short of baseball immortality. He needed 75 percent – 61 of the 81 votes cast among the 86 living Hall of Famers who make up the veterans committee. He got 50, the most of anyone but not enough to get in the Hall.

“Sixty-one votes, that seems like so much,” Irene explained in a quiet-but-strong voice. “It’s hard to get three-quarters of any group to agree on anything.”

You couldn’t get three-quarters agreement on where to eat dinner in a two-restaurant town from the 86-member veterans committee. Even if one was a fast-food joint. What made this day particularly difficult for Joan was that she had heard so many encouraging words at the recent Baseball Assistance Team dinner regarding her late husband. So many people told her they voted for Gil. He still came up 11 votes shy.

Joe Torre received only 29 votes. Ron Santo, who has lost both legs to diabetes and dreamed of making the Hall, got 46 votes while Tony Oliva and umpire Doug Harvey were next behind Hodges with 48. Just 35 voting members told former union head Marvin Miller that he could join their club.

“It seems,” Irene said, “that whoever gets the most votes should get in.”

But that’s not the way the Cooperstown game is played. Ballplayers aren’t used to this kind of ninth inning. In their games there is always a winner and a loser. In yesterday’s game there were only losers.

Another vote by the veterans committee won’t be cast for two years. Managers, executives and umpires will have to wait four years. By then Miller will be 89. In two years Joan Hodges will be 78. It will not get any easier for Gil to get in then.

The Hall of Famers insist that only the best of the best deserve an invitation. Reggie Jackson noted that getting into the Hall of Fame should be hard. “The real Hall of Fame is the Baseball Hall of Fame,” he said. Reggie is right about that.

So many Hall of Fames have been watered down, but the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is voted on by writers who have covered the sport for 10 consecutive years – earlier this year we elected Gary Carter and Eddie Murray – and by the veterans committee, is by far the most difficult Hall of Fame to enter.

“I’m not disappointed, only because I never really had my hopes up, but it’s a shame that nobody was elected,” said Torre, the only manager to win four World Series and not to be in the Hall. “I appreciate that the committee takes [its] responsibility seriously. That’s something that you just can’t take lightly when it comes to that sacred place.”

Torre, who figures to get in at a later date, admitted he was pulling for Hodges and several others: Miller, Santo and Roger Maris.

“It should be hard,” Torre said. “I think it’s a special place for those reasons and I think the committee made up the way it is certainly is not going to be easy to let people in because they know how hard it was to get there.”

Joan Hodges never thought it would be this hard for her husband, a Marine who fought for his country in WW II, a man who was a leader on the great Brooklyn Dodger teams, hit 370 home runs and might have been the best-fielding right-handed first baseman of all time, a man who was a great manager and a great person.

All that wasn’t enough yesterday. There were no words left. Only tears.

It just doesn’t add up

In order to be elected to the Hall of Fame via the Veterans Committee, a player needed to receive 61 votes – 75 percent of the 81 ballots cast. Composite candidates (players, managers, execs) needed to receive 60 votes – 75 percent of the 79 ballots cast.

PLAYERS

NAME VOTES

Gil Hodges 50

Tony Oliva 48

Ron Santo 46

Joe Torre 29

Maury Wills 24

Vada Pinson 21

Joe Gordon 19

Roger Maris 18

Marty Marion 17

Carl Mays 16

Minnie Minoso 16

Allie Reynolds 16

Dick Allen 13

Mickey Lolich 13

Wes Ferell 12

Ken Boyer 11

Don Newcombe 11

Curt Flood 10

Ken Williams 8

Rocky Colavito 7

Elston Howard 6

Bob Meusel 6

Bobby Bonds 5

Ted Kluszewski 4

Thurman Munson 4

Mike Marshall 3

COMPOSITE

NAME VOTES

Doug Harvey 48

Walter O’Malley 38

Marvin Miller 35

Buzzie Bavasi 34

Dick Williams 33

Whitey Herzog 25

Billy Martin 22

Bill White 22

Bowie Kuhn 20

Gabe Paul 13

August Busch 11

Paul Richards 10

Charlie Finley 9

Phil Wrigley 9

Harry Dalton 6