This one is really interesting to us!

In an interview with the New York Post, former Outfielder Kenny Lofton was very blunt about his feelings about why he is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  He had this the following to say:

“I was expecting to do better. But I’m a realist. I look back at the situation, and at that time, I think what happened for me was I came out on the ballot in the wrong year. There was so many people on the ballot, and so many people who had a potential situation with the performance-enhancing drugs. I felt a lot of voters wanted to keep those guys on the ballot, and that was votes taken away from me…

…I just don’t like it. It pisses me off when they still talk about the guys who did PEDs still have the opportunity to get in. You cheated the game. Look at somebody like Pete Rose not in the Hall of Fame. I’m not saying what Pete Rose did was right, but his numbers that he put up were real numbers. If it’s all about numbers, guys who cheated the game shouldn’t be in. PED guys piss me off. I just get irked every time I hear people talk about it.

You’ve got Fox having a guy who got caught with PEDs doing the World Series. I can’t even watch the World Series now.  That’s sad, you have a game that I love, I played 17 years in it, and you have Major League Baseball allowing a guy that knowingly cheated the game twice, and he’s the face of baseball, doing the World Series. That is not cool.

To see somebody who cheated the game blatantly is doing the World Series? Come on, people. You’re basically telling kids nowadays that it’s OK to cheat the game of baseball.”

When you take a deep dive into the 2013 ballot, Lofton isn’t wrong.  First off, Lofton entered the ballot the same year as Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa.  All three of those players have been accused of PED use and it is widely believed that they did partake in those and substances.  With Clemens and Bonds you have in terms of individual awards and statistics these this is the best pitcher and hitter respectively in their day. Sammy Sosa at one time was also considered a lock.  Clemens would receive 37.6% of the vote while Bonds was slightly behind at 36.2%.  As for Sosa he had a paltry 12.5%.  

Leading up to this ballot many of the baseball writers who had Hall of Fame votes were open upon their disdain for the suspected (and proven) PED users.  Some of them went as far as to publicly question the entire era and ballot.  Comments such as “we don’t know who cheated” became commonplace and it was clear that there was going to be a backlash.  

Keep in mind that the ballot did not just contain three suspect candidates in Clemens, Bonds and Sosa.  Mike Piazza also debuted on the ballot and had steroid talk around him.  So did Jeff Bagwell, who was on his third year of the ballot at the time.  Both would eventually get inducted but later than they should have.  The 2013 ballot also had Rafael Palmeiro who was caught taking PEDs and he barely hung on with 8.8% but he would fail to make the required 5% in 2014.  Mark McGwire who was an admitted user was on his seventh year and he did not even hit the 20% mark.  This is a lot of people who turned off Hall of Fame voters.  Keep in mind that in 2013 the Baseball Hall of Fame voted in NOBODY, though they would later elect Piazza, Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Tim Raines and Edgar Martinez on that ballot.  Jack Morris, Lee Smith and Alan Trammell who were also on the ballot would be chosen via the Veteran’s Committee.

The other factor that worked against Lofton was that this was a very crowded ballot.  Beyond the names already mentioned, Curt Schilling, Fred McGriff, Larry Walker, Dale Murphy, Don Mattingly and Bernie Williams were eligible for voting.  As a voter can only select ten players, it is possible that even had there been no voter backlash it is possible that Lofton might not have gotten past the first year of eligibility.

This is not to say that Lofton is not a Hall of Famer, just the victim of a crowded ballot and as he stated a backlash against the era in which he played.  Statistically he has a career bWAR of 68.3, a very good number that aligns with another members of Cooperstown, though his JAWS is slightly lower (55.9) than the average Hall of Fame Centerfielder (57.8).  Still, this is higher than Hall of Famers such as Andre Dawson and Kirby Puckett.  His traditional numbers of 2,428 Hits with a .299 Batting Average also fits into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The negative surrounding Lofton is that some perceive him as a bit of s baseball nomad.  Lofton is most associated with Cleveland where he played parts of 10 of his 17 seasons, but he also had stints with Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Texas, Los Angeles, the Chicago Cubs, New York Yankees, Houston and the Chicago White Sox.  That type of activity can rightfully or wrongfully decrease a perceived value.   

While Lofton is not in the Hall of Fame now, he could potentially get inducted in the future. Other players have been on one and done on the ballot and would be nominated by the Veteran’s Committee.

Going forward, Lofton raised an interesting that question that all who are looking at the Baseball Hall of Fame futures are wondering about…Alex Rodriguez.  A-Rod is at the level of a Bonds and Clemens but Rodriguez remains in the public eye both in terms of baseball in regards to work as an analyst with Fox and in entertainment as he is currently in a relationship with pop mogul, Jennifer Lopez.  If you were Kenny Lofton, wouldn’t it look to you as though Rodriguez was “forgiven”?

As for us, we here at Notinhalloffame.com have discussed the merits of Kenny Lofton on multiple occasions and our latest ranking places him #44. 

One of the current projects that we are working on is updating our Football Futures, which are the former players who are not yet eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. One of the people we were going to input was former Dallas Cowboys’ Tight End, Jason Witten.  With today’s news, we are not going to do that anymore. 

Witten was on Monday Night Football last year and at the time of his retirement he had been chosen for 11 Pro Bowls and collected 1,152 Receptions with 12,448 Yards.  Witten was also a First Team All Pro twice.

He is 37 and is already the all-time leader in Cowboys franchise history in Receptions and Receiving Yards.  In the season he retired (2017) he was named to the Pro Bowl so there is reason to think that he can still produce.

Many (including us) consider Jason Witten to be a future Hall of Fame inductee.  The clock just got set back a little.å

Dwight Howard’s career has not been stellar the last few years and as of this writing he is out with an injury after playing only nine games this year.  The big man’s career is clearly on the downswing so talk about whether he is a Hall of Famer or not are not premature.  One person who definitely thinks that Howard should be chosen is his former coach in Orlando, Stan Van Gundy.

In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, SVG had this to say:

“Absolutely!  It’s not even close.  It would be a travesty and absolutely ridiculous if he didn’t get in.  He was a First Team All-NBA for five years and Defensive Player three years in a row.  Then compare him to guys like Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo.  Come on, Dwight had a lot better career than a lot of centers who are in the Hall of Fame.

Dwight has had injury problems since 2012 when he hurt his back here in Orlando, and everybody is looking at him since then but are forgetting what he was up until them, which is the most dominant big men in the NBA for quite some time.  How many guys do you know who made the All-Star team for eight straight years and are not in the Hall of Fame?  We forget who this guy was.”

The comparison to Mourning and Mutombo are valid and both of them were Hall of Fame locks. Howard is also a five time rebounding champion an eight time All Star and his career is not over.  While he has suffered damage to his on court reputation after clashes with Kobe Bryant and James Harden and an inability to help Atlanta and Charlotte, Van Gundy’s claim that Howard was at one time the best Center in the National Basketball Association for an extended period of time is accurate.   

The story of Dwight Howard isn’t over yet, but it is a Hall of Fame one already.

They have not been very fast in their announcements but we final have a second inductee for this year’s WWE Hall of Fame Class.

Wayne Ferris, known professionally as The Honky Tonk Man has been announced for this year’s class. In previous shoot interviews, Ferris stated that he had been asked before to be inducted and if that is true this induction is certainly long overdue.  

Beginning his career in 1977, Ferris achieved success as one half of the Blonde Bombers with Larry Latham in Tennessee and the pair would have a still famous match, “The Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl” against Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee.  Ferris would wrestle throughout the South, Puerto Rico and Calgary before the World Wrestling Federation came calling in late 1986.

Now known as the Honky Tonk Man, the belief was that Ferris was going to be a big babyface but the Elvis impersonator failed to get over with the crowd and he turned heel following a “vote of confidence” where fans stated that they were not fans of his. Now paired with Jimmy Hart, Honky began a feud with Jake “The Snake” Roberts and would defeat him at Wrestlemania III.  A couple of months later he would shockingly defeat Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat for the Intercontinental Title and he would hold that for fourteen months and to this date is the longest reigning IC Champion in company history.  The Honky Tonk Man would defend his title primarily against former champion Randy “Macho Man” Savage and he would hold the belt until he lost at the inaugural Summer Slam to The Ultimate Warrior in less than a minute.

Honky would drop down the card feuding and he would later team up with Greg “The Hammer” Valentine to form Rhythm and Blues.  They would often challenge The Hart Foundation for the WWF World Tag Team Titles but would fall short of winning the belts.  He would leave the company in January of 1991.

After this incredible run in the WWF, The Honky Tonk Man would toil in the independents with a brief run in WCW in 1994.  He would sporadic returns to the WWF afterwards and was the inductor for Koko B. Ware when he was chosen for the Hall of Fame in 2009. 

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate The Honky Tonk Man for earning this honor.