Professional wrestling lost one of the great ones as Blackjack Lanza died today.  He was 86 years old.

Lanza began his career in 1961, and while he did wrestle all around the world, it was with the American Wrestling Association where he performed the most.  His biggest success would be with Blackjack Mulligan, where under the management of Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, he won their Tag Team Titles, and they would also win the tag titles in the then-named WWWF.  

Lanza wrestled until 1983, and two years later would go to work for the WWF as an agent/producer, a role he held for years.

Along with Mulligan, the Blackjacks were inducted to the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to extend our condolences to the fans, family and friends of Blackjack Lanza.

If Joey Gallo is batting, one of three things will likely happen.

A Walk, a Strikeout, or a Home Run.

Gallo was a First Round Pick in 2012, but it would take three years before he made it to the Rangers, and another two to be a starter.  The Rangers knew he had power, and in 2017 and 2018, he smacked at least 40 Home Runs, though in both years he batted under .210.  Gallo went to the All-Star Game in 2019, though was injured for a large part of it, only appearing in 70 Games, though he did bat .253 with 23 Home Runs.

Gallo struggled in 2020, but his defensive work was stellar, and he won his first of two straight Gold Gloves, and led the league in Total Zone Runs.  An All-Star again in 2021, Gallo had a strange year where he led the AL in Walks (111) and Strikeouts (213), batted .199, and was traded to the Yankees.

He left the team with 145 Home Runs, though his .211 Batting Average with the team is less than appealing.

Yes, we know that this is taking a while!

As many of you know, we here at Notinhalloffame.com are slowly generating the 50 of each major North American sports team.  That being said, we have existing Top 50 lists out and we always consistently look to update them when we can and based on necessity.  As such, we are very happy to present our pre-2022 revision of our top 50 Washington Nationals.

As for all of our top 50 players in hockey we look at the following: 

1.  Advanced Statistics.

2.  Traditional statistics and how they finished in the National League. 

3.  Playoff accomplishments.

4.  Their overall impact on the team and other intangibles not reflected in a stat sheet.

Please note, that this is our first revision, reflective of the last year.

The Nationals went into full rebuilding mode, trading many of their stars during the season.  There were no new entries, but were some rank elevations.

As always, we present the top five immediately, which has no changes.

1. Gary Carter

2. Tim Raines

3. Max Scherzer

4. Andre Dawson

5. Steve Rogers

You can find the entire list here.

Scherzer almost supplanted Raines at #2, and he completed the season with the Nationals, he likely would have.

Ryan Zimmerman moves up from #9 to #6.  This could be the end of the climb for Zimmerman, as it is speculated that he might soon retire.

Infielder, Trea Turner, was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers during the season.  Despite, not playing all of the year with Washington, he was fantastic this year, and moves up to #14 from #22.

Juan Soto, who was this year’s National League MVP runner-up, rockets up to #17 from #36.

We welcome your input and comments and as always, we thank you for your support.

The Baseball Hall of Fame has announced the results of the 10-man ballots from both the Early Baseball Era Committee and Golden Days Era Committee for the Class of 2022, and it is a loaded group with six new names inducted.

Bud Fowler and Buck O’Neill were chosen by the Early Baseball Era Committee and Jim Kaat, Minnie Minoso, Tony Oliva and Gil Hodges were selected by the Golden Days Era Committee.

Bud Fowler, P, 3B, 2B, MAN.  Fowler not only had a long career in the late 1800s, he is considered to be one of the first African-American baseball players in history.  He received 75 percent of the vote.

Buck O’Neil, 1B.   Memphis (NAL 1937), Kansas City (NAL 1938-43 & 1946-48).  O’Neill was a two-time All-Star and Negro League Champion, but more importantly became the voice of the Negro Leagues.  O’Neil played a large part in the creation of the Negro League Baseball Museum, and he became the first African-American to become a Coach in MLB.  He received 81.3% of the vote.

Those not selected were:

Bill Dahlen, SS, 3B.  Chicago (NL 1891-1898), Brooklyn (NL 1899-1903) & New York (NL 1904-1911).  

John Donaldson, CF, P.  Kansas City (NNL 1920-24)*.  

Vic Harris, OF.  Pittsburgh (NNL 1922), Cleveland (NNL 1924), (Chicago NNL 1924), Homestead (ANL 1929), Homestead (EWL 1932), Detroit (EWL 1932), Homestead (NN2 1933), Pittsburgh (NN2 1933), Homestead NN2 1935-45 & 1947)*.  

Grant “Home Run” Johnson, SS, 2B.  

Lefty O’Doul, OF, P.  New York (AL 1919-20 & 1922), Boston (AL 1923), New York (NL 1928 & 1933-34), Philadelphia (NL 1929-30), Brooklyn (NL 1931-33).  

Dick “Cannonball” Redding, P.  Brooklyn (ECL 1923-27).  

Allie Reynolds, P.  Cleveland (AL 1942-46), New York (1947-54).  

George “Tubby” Scales, 3B. 2B. 1B, P.  St. Louis (NWL 1921-23), New York (EVL 1923-28), Newark (EVL 1926), New York (ANL, 1926), Homestead (ANL 1926), Homestead (NN2 1935), New York (NN2 1936, 1939 & 1945), Baltimore (NN2 1940-44 & 1946).  

The four chosen from the Golden Days Era consists of four names, two of which, Kaat and Oliva are still alive.

The Golden Days Era nominees are:

Gil Hodges, 1B, OF.  Brooklyn/Los Angeles (NL 1943 & 1947-61), New York (NL 1962-63).  Hodges was an eight-time All-Star who smacked 370 Home Runs with 1,274 RBIs.  He also twice led the Dodgers to World Series Championships.  Hodges was on the ballot for the full fifteen years, peaking at 63.4% in his final year (1983).  He received 75% of the ballot.

Jim Kaat, P.  Washington/Minnesota (AL 1959-73), Chicago (AL 1973-75), Philadelphia (NL 1976-79), New York (AL 1979-80), St. Louis (NL 1980-83).  Kaat was a three-time All-Star, and a 16-time Gold Glove winner.  He had a record of 283-237 with 2,471 Strikeouts.  Kaat was on the ballot for fifteen years, with his highest total coming in 1993 with 29.6%.  He received 75% of the vote,

Minnie Minoso, OF, 1B.  New York (NN2 1946-48), Cleveland (AL 1949, 1951 & 1958-59), Chicago (AL 1951-47, 1960-61, 1964, 1976 & 1980), St. Louis (NL 1962) & Washington (AL 1963).  The only player to appear in five different decades, Minoso had 2,110 Hits, 195 Home Runs and was a 13-time All-Star.  Minoso was on the ballot for 15 years, with his highest total coming in 1988 with 21.1%.  He received 87.5% of the vote.

Tony Oliva, OF.  Minnesota (AL 1962-76).  Oliva was a three-time Batting Champion, five-time leader in Hits and eight-time All-Star.  He had 1,917 career Hits with a lifetime Batting Average of .304.  Oliva was on the ballot for 15 years, and peaked at 47.3% in 1988.  He received 75% of the ballot.

The other nominees were:

Dick Allen, 1B, 3B, OF.  Philadelphia (NL 1963-69 & 1975-76), St. Louis (NL 1970), Los Angeles (NL 1971), Chicago (AL 1972-74) & Oakland (AL 1977).  

Ken Boyer, 3B, OF.  St. Louis (NL 1955-65), New York (NL 1966-67), Chicago (AL 1967-68) & Los Angeles (NL 1968-69).  

Roger Maris, OF.  Cleveland (AL 1957-58), Kansas City (AL 1958-59), New York (AL 1960-66) & St. Louis (NL 1967-68).  

Danny Murtaugh, MAN.  Pittsburgh (NL 1957-64, 1967, 1970-71 & 1973-76).  

Billy Pierce, P.  Detroit (AL 1945 & 1948), Chicago (AL 1949-61) & San Francisco (NL 1962-64).  

Maury Wills, OF.  Los Angeles (NL 1959-66 & 1969-72), Pittsburgh (NL 1967-68) & Montreal (NL 1969).  

These six men will (potentially) be joined by those from the writer’s ballot on January 25.  Following that, we will revise our Notinhalloffame.com Baseball List.  

We here a Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate the newest members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.