Committee Chairman

Hope for Pete Rose?

Feb 07, 2015

An interesting piece of news came afoot regarding Pete Rose and the Baseball Hall of Fame this week.

The new Major League Baseball Commissioner, Rob Manfred, stated that he would be making a decision to potentially reinstate Rose to Baseball and pardon him from gambling on the sport has a lot of ears raised. Rose has been banned for twenty-five years and throughout the Bud Selig era there was no discernable talk that he would be reinstated. There is now a glimmer of hope that the Hit King of Baseball might make it to Cooperstown after all.

This news came form an interview on ESPN’s Mike and Mike Show, where the new commissioner mentioned that he had been in contact with Rose’s lawyers and that it is a “conversation he was willing to have”. It may not seem like much, but this is by far the best chance that he has had in decades.

If by chance Manfred decides to reinstate Pete Rose to Major League Baseball, this does not mean by any stretch that he would be a lock to get inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Veterans Committee for Rose’s era meets next in 2016, but it is made up of many players who have never been quick to induct anybody. If whomever makes up the committee wants to still play the moral card, Rose could still be shunned from Cooperstown.

We will certainly be keeping our eyes on how this develops and are hopeful that Rose will be reinstated and take his place in Cooperstown while he is alive.

Carlos Delgado headlines Canadian Baseball HOF Class

Feb 05, 2015

Published in Not in Hall of Fame News

Carlos Delgado may not have received the votes necessary to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, but he did receive a decent consolation prize, as he will be headlining the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Mary’s Ontario.

Delgado would play his first twelve seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays where he would make the American League All Star Team twice. In 2003, he would lead the league in Runs Batted In and OPS and would finish second in MVP voting. Accumulatively, Delgado would blast 336 Home Runs with a Slash Line of .282/.392/.556 and a bWAR of 36.7 as a Blue Jay.

Felipe Alou, a native of the Dominican Republic, joins Delgado, a Puerto Rican.

Alou’s contribution to Baseball in Canada was as the long time Manager of the Montreal Expos, a team he played 19 Games for in 1973. As the Expos Skipper, Alou would spend ten seasons there with a record of 691 and 717.

Two homegrown Canadian talents join the two Caribbean baseball stars.

From New Brunswick, former First Baseman/Outfielder/Designated Hitter, Matt Stairs will also be inducted. Stairs, who played for twelve teams over his nineteen year career, holds the career record for Pinch Hit Home Runs. In his career, Stairs would have 265 Home Runs with a 14.3 bWAR. Corey Koskie, a nine year MLB veteran from Manitoba was also selected. Koskie played most of his career with the Minnesota Twins and retired with a bWAR of 24.6. Reporter Bob Elliott was also chosen.

We would like to congratulate the next group of inductees to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

Baseball List revised: Ken Griffey Jr. to the top

Feb 04, 2015

Published in Not in Hall of Fame News

Much like we sped up our process for revising the Rock and Roll list, we did the same with our Baseball one.

Last month, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced that four players would be entering the hallowed halls of Cooperstown. Recapping those players and the rank that they had on our list are:

Randy Johnson (Ranked #3)
Pedro Martinez (Ranked #5)
Craig Biggio (Ranked #11)
John Smoltz (Ranked #13)

Along with the addition of Ken Griffey Jr., your votes and comments, there is a significant change in the top ten of our Baseball list. As per the last three years, there is a 1A, 1B and 1C to reflect both Pete Rose and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson who are not eligible for the Hall of Fame but are players who we feel should be.

The new top ten with their previous rank in parenthesis are:

1A. Pete Rose (1A)
1B. Shoeless Joe Jackson (1B)
1C. Ken Griffey Jr. (NEW)
2. Roger Clemens (2)
3. Barry Bonds (1C)
4. Mike Piazza (4)
5. Jeff Bagwell (6)
6. Mike Mussina (7)
7. Tim Raines (8)
8. Bill Dahlen (9)
9. Curt Schilling (10)
10. Lou Whitaker (12)

Griffey is not the only new entry as Jim Edmonds and Trevor Hoffman debut at 44 and 47 respectively. As there were only three new eligible players cracking the top 100, and four players on last year’s list inducted, Boog Powell returns to the list at number 100.

As always, we encourage your opinions and votes, and thank you for all of your support of Notinhalloffame.com

Triple H comments on Chyna and the WWE HOF

Feb 04, 2015

Published in Not in Hall of Fame News

We assume that many of you WWE fans listened to the “Stone Cold” Steve Austin podcast with Triple H, the COO, and likely future head of the WWE.

It was a great listen, but rather than review the entire piece, we want to focus on comments that Triple H made regarding Chyna and the Hall of Fame.

Although the company is still owned by Vince McMahon, the fingerprints of the man who is professionally known as Jean Levesque has been instrumental in the growth of their feeder system, NXT, and mending fences that brought Bruno Sammartino and The Ultimate Warrior back into the fold with the WWE and getting the inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Although we don’t know for sure, we have strong suspicions that he may have had a hand in getting Lanny Poffo to relax his stance and get Randy “Macho Man” Savage inducted into the Hall of Fame this year.

When asked by Steve Austin about his former love interest and former Intercontinental Champion, Chyna, and the Hall of Fame he had this to say:

“You know, that's one of those questions... Does she deserve to go in the Hall of Fame? Absolutely. ... It is a little bit of a double sided edge. It's not just as easy as 'should this person go in the Hall of Fame?' Completely 100-percent transcended the business, changed the business, paradigm shifter of the business, right? Did what no woman ever did before and was awesome at it, and a phenomenal talent. All the other stuff that happened and I don't need to get into any of the other stuff but there is no beef on this side with anything, and I mean that 100 percent. From a career standpoint should she be in the Hall of Fame? Absolutely.

It's a bit difficult, though, and this is the flip side of the coin that nobody looks at... You have a, I've got an 8-year-old kid. My 8-year-old kid sees the Hall of Fame, and my 8-year-old kid goes on the Internet to look at... 'oh, this is Chyna, I've never heard of her, I'm 8-years-old, I've never heard of that.' So I go type it in, I go punch it up, and what comes up? And I'm not criticizing anybody, I'm not criticizing lifestyle choices; everybody has their reasons. I don't know what they were and I don't care to know. It's not a morality thing or anything else. It is just the fact of what it is. That's a difficult choice.

The Hall of Fame is a funny thing in that it is not as simple as 'this guy had a really good career, a legendary career. He should go in the Hall of Fame.' Yeah, but we can't because of this reason, we can't because of this legal instance, we can't because of this. ... It's different than any other Hall of Fame in the world and at the end of the day, it's for our fans.”

Some have pointed that this is sexist, claiming that there is a good chance that Sean Waltman (X-Pac) who participated in one of those videos might get in as an individual or as a member of D-Generation X, though the circumstances are not the same. Chyna would make multiple pornographic films, while X-Pac’s was a home video that was leaked and marketed, which granted he did participate in. The levels are not the same.

Current WWE Hall of Famer, Sunny (Tammy Sytch) has dabbled in soft core pornographic material is also in the Hall, but again the levels aren’t even close.

As the WWE is now a publically traded company the headlines that it could make are certainly ones that want to avoid, even if she did change the narrative for women’s wrestling in the United States.