Hall of Honor: Jake Peavy visits Cooperstown

A few days before a national broadcasting gig on the West Coast, former Cy Young Award winner, three-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion Jake Peavy made a special trip to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Peavy was in Cooperstown June 29, five weeks after participating in the Hall of Fame Military Classic: A Tribute to Service and Sacrifice during Memorial Day Weekend. Due to rainy weather and wet conditions, the game – featuring two dozen former big leaguers and seven Hall of Famers – ended after one inning.

“Being here for the Military Classic game was terrific despite the weather. It’s always great to have a chance to come up here. Cooperstown is just such a special place. Billy Ripken and Cal Ripken have their Ripken Nationals at nearby Cooperstown All-Star Village this week and I’ll be the ambassador for that tournament,” Peavy said. “So, I longed to show one of my little boys the history of it. And this was a great opportunity.

“I had been up in 2008 as a Padres player against the Cubs for the last Hall of Fame Game. Today, I’m here to experience Cooperstown with my fourth of five sons, Waylon, who is 12. They’ve all loved and appreciated baseball to some degree, but not any of them quite like this one. He’s a pitcher and an infielder. I just want my kids to have fun and love baseball for what it is.”

As someone who has spent his entire adult life in the game, Peavy had no trouble explaining what the Hall of Fame means to him.

“Well, this is the Mecca. This is our church, you know?” he said. “I had some success in the game and got to hang around for 15 seasons in the majors but couldn’t quite punch through and be a one-percenter (the percentage of all MLB players who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame). But I was able to play with Trevor Hoffman and David Ortiz, people who were bona fide Hall of Famers. I played on that first WBC team in 2006 with Ken Griffey Jr., Derek Jeter and Chipper Jones, just Hall of Famers everywhere. So, the Hall of Fame – and I don’t mean to make light of religion or spirituality – but this is baseball’s holy ground.”

Peavy began his career with the San Diego Padres (2002-09), before joining the Chicago White Sox (2009-13), Boston Red Sox (2013-14) and San Francisco Giants (2014-16). An All-Star in 2005, 2007 and 2012, he was named the unanimous 2007 National League Cy Young Award winner and won the pitching Triple Crown when he led the Senior Circuit in wins (19), strikeouts (240) and ERA (2.54). He won back-to-back World Series as a member of the 2013 Red Sox and 2014 Giants. He would end his career with a 152-126 record, a 3.63 ERA and 2,207 strikeouts over 388 regular season games.

A 2023 inductee in the Padres Hall of Fame, Peavy finished his career as the franchise’s all-time leader in strikeouts and returned to the organization in 2025 to serve as a special assistant to the Padres CEO.

Born and raised in Mobile, Ala., Peavy is proud of the fact that five members of the Hall of Fame – Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey, Satchel Paige, Ozzie Smith and Billy Williams – also call it their birthplace. 

“It’s crazy. It must be something in the water,” Peavy said. “I played for the Savannah Bananas. And why I did was because they went to Rickwood Field in Birmingham. They came to Mobile and played at Hank Aaron Stadium, but I just threw out the first pitch. I said, ‘I’ll play for you if you go to play at Rickwood and take the mound that Satchel and so many greats pitched on.’ Alabama is a rich state of baseball tradition and history.

“And then I should mention, and I never really put this out there publicly, but I wore No. 44 in the big leagues, which two of my heroes, Hank Aaron and Willie McCovey, wore. I never mentioned that, because I never wanted anybody thinking that I was doing anything but honoring these men that were from where I was from. Being from the South, it was a very racially charged environment for so long but knowing these guys’ stories and honoring these African American players, as somebody who wasn’t, meant a lot to me and my family.”

Peavy did during his long big league career have the opportunity to face, with varying amounts of success, the three members of the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026 – Carlos Beltrán (8-for-20, 1 HR, 6 RBI), Jeff Kent (10-for-40, 1 HR, 4 RBI) and Andruw Jones (1-for-21, 8 Ks) – who will be inducted at a ceremony in Cooperstown on July 26.

“Here’s what I’ll say: Andruw Jones is the best defender I’ve ever seen play the game of baseball. I played with Andruw late in his career when ended up with the White Sox, and even as an aging guy, just his instincts and his ability to just be in the right spot, it was just remarkable,” Peavy said. “Jeff Kent was not much different from the best player that I ever faced. The utmost of respect. He wasn’t trying to be your friend on the baseball field. I respected that, I wasn’t trying to be his friend. So, I had huge respect for those guys.

“Carlos Beltrán was probably – of those guys – the one that had the most overall talent, just God-given talent. I absolutely love seeing this year’s class go in.”

Though he wasn’t a teammate of Mr. Padre, Tony Gwynn, Peavy’s face lit up talking about the San Diego legend.

“We just were in spring trainings together. We faced each other when I was a minor leaguer, pitching against the big-league team in exhibition games. And then when he was around the team as a broadcaster,” Peavy said. “He was the first Hall of Famer that I ever really became friends with. Me and Tony were buddies. We rode to the field on the road together.”

Today, Peavy, 45, is an analyst appearing across MLB Network’s programming, a role he has had since 2022. He’s also worked in a booth as an analyst for NBC Sports, including the Dodgers vs. Padres matchup on July 5, part of “Star-Spangled Sunday” in which all 15 MLB games are nationally televised in a single day.

“Before I go on air, I close my eyes and I try to go into a time and space where I did not do well, and I understand how hard the game is. It is incredibly difficult. There’s two types of baseball players: humble ones and those who are about to be. It’s that easy. So, I try to bring that perspective,” Peavy said. “The game gets real easy when you get done playing. You know a lot about it, and you sit and watch it on TV and go, ‘Oh, how’d that happen?’ You can forget just how hard it is to execute pitches against a Carlos Beltrán.

“I want the viewer to feel like we’re sitting in a living room, watching a game together on the couch, and it’s very conversational.”

Bill Francis is the senior research and writing specialist at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum