It is a major day for the Pro Football Hall of Fame as they have announced their preliminary nominees for enshrinement.

Let’s take a look at who was chosen at this stage by way of their position:

Quarterbacks:

Randall Cunningham, Dave Krieg, Jeff Garcia, Donovan McNabb, Steve McNair.

Running Backs:

Shaun Alexander, Tiki Barber, Earnest Byner, Larry Centers, Corey Dillon, Eddie George, Edgerrin James, Darryl Johnston, Eric Metcalf (WR/KR/PR), Clinton Portis, Fred Taylor, Herschel Walker, Chris Warren, Ricky Watters.

Wide Receivers:

Isaac Bruce, Gary Clark, Henry Ellard, Torry Holt, Chad Johnson, Derrick Mason, Sterling Sharpe, Rod Smith, Hines Ward.

Tight Ends:

Mark Bavaro, Tony Gonzalez, Brent Jones, Jay Novacek.

Offensive Linemen:

Willie Anderson (T), Tony Boselli (T), Lomas Brown (T), Ray Donaldson (C), Alan Faneca (G), Chris Hinton (G/T), Kent Hull (C), Steve Hutchinson (G), Mike Kenn (T), Olin Kreutz (C), Kevin Mawae (C/G), Tom Nalen (C), Chris Samuels (T), Richmond Webb (T), Steve Wisniewski (G).

Defensive Linemen:

La’Roi Glover (DT/NT), Russell Maryland (DT), Leslie O’Neal (DE), Simeon Rice (DE), Richard Seymour (DT), Neil Smith (DE), Bryant Young (DT).

Linebackers:

Carl Banks, Cornelius Bennett, Tedy Bruschi, London Fletcher, Seth Joyner, Wilber Marshall, Clay Matthews, Willie McGinest, Karl Mecklenburg, Sam Mills, Chris Spielman, Takeo Spikes, Darryl Talley, Zach Thomas.

Defensive Backs:

Eric Allen (CB), Steve Atwater (S), Champ Bailey (CB), Ronde Barber (CB/S), Bill Bates (S), LeRoy Butler (S), Nick Collins (S), Thomas Everett (S), Rodney Harrison (S), Ty Law (CB), Albert Lewis (CB), John Lynch (S), Tim McDonald (S), Ed Reed (FS), Dennis Smith (S), Troy Vincent (CB), Adrian Wilson (S), Darren Woodson (S).

Special Teams:

Jason Elam (K), Jeff Feagles (P), Sean Landeta (P), Brian Mitchell (KR/PR also RB), Steve Tasker (ST also WR).

Coaches:

Don Coryell, Bill Cowher, Tom Flores, Jim Hanifan, Mike Holmgren, Jimmy Johnson, Richie Petitbon, Dan Reeves, Marty Schottenheimer, Clark Shaughnessy, Dick Vermeil.

There are four first time nominees in Tony Gonzalez, London Fletcher, Ed Reed and Champ Bailey.

In November 25 Semi-Finalists will be chosen and the Finalists will be announced in January.

It’s that time again!

Last December, our Fictitious Athlete Hall of Fame announced it’s fourth full class as voted by a one year long vote by the public.

That class saw Bobby Boucher (The Waterboy), Forrest Gump (Forrest Gump) and Willie “Mays” Hayes (Major League) join previous inductees, Apollo Creed (Rocky), Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez, Charlie Conway (The Mighty Ducks), The Hanson Brothers (Slap Shot), Reggie Dunlop (Slap Shot), Happy Gilmore (Happy Gilmore), Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn (Major League), Crash Davis (Bull Durham), Roy Hobbs (The Natural) and Rocky Balboa, the inaugural inductee.

Like in previous years, the opening round began with over 300 Fictional Athletes and over 100 Contributors, which has now been reduced to 20 Fictional Athletes, 10 Fictional Contributors and 3 Veterans for the Semi-Final Round.

The Finalists for each respective category are as follows:

The 20 Fictitious Athlete Semi-Finalists are:

A.C. Slater (Saved by the Bell)

Al Bundy (Married…With Children)

Al Czervik (Caddyshack)

“Big Ern” Ernie McCracken (Kingpin)

Bud (Air Bud)

Clubber Lang (Rocky III)

Daniel LaRusso (The Karate Kid)

Dottie Hinson (A League of Their Own)

“Fast” Eddie Felson (The Hustler & The Color of Money)

Ivan Drago (Rocky IV)

Jake Taylor (Major League)

Jimmy Chitwood (Hoosiers)

Paul “Wrecking” Crewe (The Longest Yard, 1974)

Peter LaFleur (Dodgeball)

Ricky Bobby (Talladega Nights)

Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy (Tin Cup)

Sam Malone (Cheers)

Scott Howard “The Wolf” (Teen Wolf)

Shane Falco (The Replacements)

Ty Webb (Caddyshack)

The 10 Fictitious Contributors Semi-Finalists are:

Adrian Balboa (Rocky)

Annie Savoy (Bull Durham)

Coach Ernie Pantusso (Cheers)

Hayden Fox (Coach)

Jerry Maguire (Jerry Maguire)

John Kreese (The Karate Kid)

Lou Brown (Major League)

Morris Buttermaker (The Bad News Bears)

Ray Kinsella (Field of Dreams)

The Gopher (Caddyshack)

The 3 Fictitious Veterans are:

Harold Lamb (The Freshman)

Huxley College (Horse Feathers)

Joe Boyd/Joe Hart (Damn! Yankees)

Online voting can be found here for the Fictional Athletes.

Online voting can be found here for the Fictional Athletic Contributors,

Online voting can be found here for the Fictional Athletic Veterans.

The Finalists for all three categories will be announced in late December of this year.

You know what we want you to do!

When you gave a chance cast your vote!

As always, we here at Notinhalloffame.com we thank you for your support!

We have another retirement to talk about but this time we move from the gridiron to the diamond as former three time All Star, Ryan Howard has officially announced his retirement from Major League Baseball.

Howard made the announcement in the Player’s Tribune and specifically thanked Philadelphia, where he played the bulk of his career.

In the last half of the 2000’s, Howard was one of the most potent offensive players in baseball. Named the Rookie of the Year in 2005, Howard had a 58 Home Run and 146 RBI season which was league leading and helped him land the MVP Award. Howard was a key part of the Phillies resurgence to playoff contention and he would help them win the 2008 World Series and return to the Fall Classic the following year, albeit in a losing effort, though Howard was named the NLCS MVP along the way. A torn ACL would reduce Howard’s productivity and he would no longer be the power player he once was. He last played in 2016.

Howard retires with 382 career Home Runs.

Coincidentally, we will have two articles on Howard that we will be uploaded soon as he is featured in our soon to be published Top 50 Philadelphia Phillies of All-Time and the 2022 Baseball Futures.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to wish Ryan Howard the best in his post-playing career.

While it is taking is quite some time for us to generate our top 50 players for each major franchise (MLB, NBA, NFL & NHL), we also endeavor to update all of our existing lists when we can.

As such we have done so with a revision of the Charlotte Hornets.

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

1. 1. Advanced Statistics, such as PER, Win Shares, and VORP.

2. 2. Traditional statistics and how they finished in the NBA.

3. 3. Playoff accomplishments.

4. 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.

Also remember that in the case of the Charlotte Hornets, the history of the original incarnation of the Hornets is part of this, as they own the rights to that legacy. This also includes the expansion Charlotte Bobcats, who would reclaim the name of the Hornets.

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. 1. Kemba Walker: Over the last two seasons, Walker moved from #6 to #1 and is the definite face of the franchise, though this has been a team that has not advanced to the Quarter-Finals.

2. 2. Gerald Wallace: Due to a slight adjustment in the way we do our rankings, Wallace moved ahead of Larry Johnson and held his #2 spot.

3. 3. Larry Johnson: Johnson slides one spot due to the changes we made on our algorithms but remains as one of the greatest Charlotte Hornets of all-time.

4. 4. Muggsy Bogues: Bogues may be small in stature but he is still a top five player in terms of all-time Charlotte Hornet history.

5. 5. Dell Curry: In terms of who Dell Curry is, many figure him is as the father of Steph but for this purpose he is ranked #5 on our all-time lust for the Charlotte Hornets.

There are other significant changes worth mentioning as there are four significant jumps and three new debuts on this list:

Marvin Williams moves from #25 to #14.

Cody Zeller moves from #27 to #17.

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist moves from #38 to #22.

Nicolas Batum moves form #47 to #23.

The new entries are:

Jeremy Lamb at #31.

Dwight Howard at #35.

Frank Kaminsky at #45.

We will continue our adjustments on our existing lists and will continue developing our new lists.

As always we thank you for your support.