It is a very sad day in the world of rock and roll as Dick Dale, “The King of the Surf Guitar” passed away at the age of 81.

Born Richard Anthony Monsour, Dale was a very influential figure in music.  He drew from Middle Eastern influences and with those non-Western scales and use of reverberation he created a guitar style that matched his love of surfing.

In 1961, he had his first hit with “Let’s Go Trippin”, a song that is credited ushering in the Surf Music craze and shortly after his most signature song, “Misirlou” was released.  Dale was huge in California and would reach a national level and a Dale concert was a must go for a time.  The British Invasion and changing musical trends took him out of the public eye as did a long bout with rectal cancer but he would continue to tour until shortly before his death.

We have him ranked at #13 of those to consider for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to extend our condolences to the friends, family and fans of Dick Dale at this time.

What we here at Notinhalloffame.com consider December to April the “Hall of Fame Season” and part of that are the staggered announcements for the UFC Hall of Fame. The first announcement came last night as Michael Bisping who will enter as the Modern Era inductee and is the first member of the Class of 2019.

Making his Mixed Martial Arts debut in 2004, he would win Ultimate Fighter 3 two years later as a Welterweight.  Bisping would eventually move up to Middleweight and would be a top contender for years, though he always seemed to be one fight away from challenging for the UFC Middleweight Title.  High profile losses to Dan Henderson, Wanderlei Silva, Chael Sonnen, Vitor Belfort and Luke Rockhold were offset by big wins over Jason Miller, Cung Le, Thales Leites and Anderson Silva but the title seemed to elude him until UFC 199.  On that night, he took a fight on short notice against Luke Rockhold to avenge his previous defeat and win the Middleweight Championship.  He followed that up with a successful title defense against Dan Henderson, who beat him at UFC 100.  He would lose the title to the legendary Georges St-Pierre at UFC 217 and retired shortly after one more loss.  

Historically speaking, Bisping is the first (and only) British fighter to win a championship in the UFC and he is without question the greatest British fighter ever. His 16 wins as a Middleweight is a UFC record and four times he would win “Fight of the Night”.  Bisping retired with a record of 30 Wins and 9 Losses.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate Michael Bisping for earning this honor.

It took them a while but the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced the full lineup of inductors for their ceremony on March 29.  

The inductors are:

Harry Styles will induct Stevie Nicks

Brian May will induct Def Leppard

Trent Reznor will induct the Cure.

Janelle Monae will induct Janet Jackson.

David Byrne will induct Radiohead.

Susanna Hoffs will induct the Zombies

John Taylor and Simon LeBon will induct Roxy Music.

The selection of Reznor is curious considering how Reznor recently trashed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Thom Yorke of Radiohead had already previously announced that he won’t be there due to a piano piece he wrote debuting at the Paris Philharmonic the same evening.

As of this time the list of performances has not been announced, but we here at Notinhalloffame.com will be paying attention! 

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.  We have a new one to unveil today, that of the Arizona Diamondbacks who won the World Series in 2001.

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

1. Advanced Statistics.

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

3. Playoff accomplishments.

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

Remember, this is ONLY based on what a player does on that particular team and not what he accomplished elsewhere and also note that we have placed an increased importance on the first two categories.

This list is updated up until the end of the 2017-18 Season.

The complete list can be found here, but as always we announce our top five in this article.  They are:

1. Randy Johnson

2. Paul Goldschmidt

3. Brandon Webb

4. Curt Schilling

5. Luis Gonzalez

We will continue our adjustments on our existing lists and will continue developing our new lists.  Look for the Top 50 Chicago Blackhawks next.

As always we thank you for your support.