This is one of the days that we eagerly await annually as we now know who will comprise the Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2018.

Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Vladimir Guerrero and Trevor Hoffman have been chosen as all three received the necessary 75% of the vote from the Baseball Hall of Fame voters.

Jones, who played his entire career with the Atlanta Braves, is the highest vote getter this year with 97.2% of the ballot. Jones is one of the greatest hitting Third Basemen in history accumulating 2,726 Hits with a Slash Line of .303/.401/.529. The 1999 National League MVP also belted 468 Home Runs.

Vladimir Guerrero enters the Hall on his second try. The 2004 American League MVP and nine time All Star received 71.4% of the vote last season and easily cruised into the Hall this year with 92.9%.

Jim Thome also enters Cooperstown on his first try. In comparison to Jones, Thome was a vagabond playing for six different Major League teams, but his power prowess had few equals. The five time All Star blasted 612 Home Runs, which ranks him seventh all-time. Thome received 89.8% of the ballot

Trevor Hoffman enters the Baseball Hall of Fame on his third try and becomes the sixth Relief Pitcher to be inducted. Hoffman is second all-time in Saves and is a two time runner up to the National League Cy Young Award. Hoffman finished with 79.9% of the vote.

Now let’s take a look at those who were not chosen.

Edgar Martinez made another significant jump in the votes. He went from 43.4% to 58.6% and this year he went to 70.4%. This is the ninth year that the Designated Hitter was on the ballot and he is considered to be the best ever at that position. Martinez was tracking well and was projected to be inducted this year but he should be able to get in next year.

Mike Mussina saw his total rise from 51.8% to 63.5%. Sabremetrically speaking, Mussina remains one of the biggest snubs on the ballot, but he has only been on the ballot for five years. This increase could see him enter Cooperstown next year but this double digit rise will bring him induction eventually.

Barry Bonds remains a polarizing figure for the Baseball Hall of Fame, but PEDs or not, this was the best hitter of his era and arguably of all-time. The career Home Run Leader and seven time MVP received 56.4% up from 53.8% from last year.

Roger Clemens is in the exact same boat as Bonds. “The Rocket” was also the best of his generation and is a seven time Cy Young Award winner, though he is a two time World Series winner (unlike Bonds). His numbers increased to 54.1% last year and reached 57.3% this year.

The increase (albeit mild) of both Bonds and Clemens votes shows that the voters are becoming more forgiving of the PED era (with many citing the induction of Bud Selig as a catalyst for their change of heart) and it is also indicative of an influx of younger voters. This is the sixth year on the ballot for Bonds and Clemens and there is certainly hope on the horizon for both; something almost unthinkable three years ago.

Curt Schilling has Hall of Fame numbers but he did not exactly endear himself to voters with his anti-media stance and he was one of the few players to see his total decrease last year. He had 51.2% of the vote, which is up from last year’s 45.0% but down from 2016’s 52.3%. He may still need to grovel to the media for his upswing to resume.

Omar Vizquel is also on his first ballot and he received 37% of the vote. The Shortstop won eleven Gold Gloves and is regarded as one of the best defensive players ever. Vizquel also had 2,877 career Hits. He should be very happy with this debut number.

Larry Walker did see his total rise from to 34.1% but he is running out of time. The former National League MVP is still suffering from the Coors Field market and he has only two more years on the ballot.

Fred McGriff continues to tread water. “The Crime Dog” was only at 23.2% of the vote, which is his ninth year on the ballot. The First Baseman finished with 493 Home Runs but has never finished higher than 25%.

Manny Ramirez continues to struggle in his Hall of Fame voting. Ramirez has incredible career numbers, which are definitely Hall of Fame worthy but he was suspended twice for PEDs, something that did not happen to Bonds and Clemens. His tally was 22%, down slightly from last year.

Jeff Kent received 14.5% of the vote and with this being his sixth year on the ballot it is not looking good for the 2000 National League MVP.

Gary Sheffield received 11.1% in his fourth year of eligibility. “Shef” needs Bonds and Clemens to get in to have any real shot of getting into the Hall of Fame. He is a nine time All Star with 509 career Home Runs.

Billy Wagner received 11.1% in his third year of the ballot, which is enough to keep him on the ballot.

Scott Rolen only finished with10.2 on his first year of eligibility. Rolen’s biggest asset is his 70.0 bWAR but his traditional metrics will still give him a look for years to come. He should see his numbers rise in upcoming years.

Sammy Sosa held on with 7.8% of the vote. He is unlikely to make it to Cooperstown.

Andruw Jones received 7.3% on his first appearance on the ballot. The native of Curacao has over 400 Home Runs and is a four time league leader in Defensive bWAR.

Three notable first timers on ballot did not make it to 5%, that being Johan Santana, Jamie Moyer and Johnny Damon.

The others who did not earn enough votes were Chris Carpenter, Livan Hernandez, Orlando Hudson, Aubrey Huff, Jason Isringhausen, Carlos Lee, Brad Lidge, Hideki Matsui, Kevin Millwood, Kerry Wood and Carlos Zambrano.

These three will join previously chosen Veterans Committee Selections, Alan Trammell and Jack Morris and Ford C. Frick recipient, Bob Costas.

We will be revamping our Notinhallofame.com Baseball list shortly. Look for that in late February.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate the newest members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. We don’t know about you but this is the most excited that we have been in years about a Hall of Fame Class!

The University of Pittsburgh has finally announced that they will finally be creating an athletic Hall of Fame that will honor their past athletic heroes.

The University will be allowing online submissions that can be accepted until March 31. A 19 member Hall of Fame selection has also been created.

While we don’t know who will be entering the Pitt Hall of Fame at this time we know two things for sure:

To qualify, an athlete has to be five years removed from their last season in college and if they are in an athletic career where they could turn professional, they cannot be currently active.

We also know that the inaugural class will be inducted on September 7.

We guess we another thing…we will be paying attention!

Shortly the Baseball Hall of Fame will be announcing who will be inducted into Cooperstown and former Pitcher Johan Santana is on the ballot. While it is uncertain as to whether Santana will receive the necessary votes to make the Hall (or even the 5% to make the next ballot due to the plethora of names who are eligible to vote for) he will be enshrined for sure into the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame.

The Venezuelan arrived to Minnesota via trade from the Florida Marlins on a 1999 Rule 5 draft swap for Jared Camp. It is easy to see who won this deal isn’t it?   Santana made the Twins roster in 2000 and he bounced back and forth between long relief and spot starting but in 2003 he began to put it altogether and won a permanent spot in the rotation becoming one of the better hurlers in the last half of the season and he helped the team make the playoffs that year.

Johan Santana had arrived and in 2004 and he would begin a four year run as the most dominating pitcher in the American League. The flamethrower would go 20-6 while leading the AL in ERA, Strikeouts, FIP, WHIP and SO/BB and would win the CY Young Award. 2005 would not be a Cy Young winning one, but he was 3rd in voting and finished first in Strikeouts, FIP, WHIP and SO/BB. He would again reclaim the Cy Young in 2006 while again taking the ERA, Strikeouts, FIP, WHIP and SO/BB Title. This would also see Santana finish first in Wins for the first and only time in his career. 2007 was a “down” year where he only finished 5th in Cy Young voting.

Santana was traded to the New York Mets in the off-season.

Johan Santana’s overall numbers with Minnesota are 93 Wins against 44 Losses with 1,381 Strikeouts with a 3.22 Earned Run Average.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate Johan Santana on earning this prestigious honor.

As we slowly work on the greatest 50 players of every major franchise of the big four of North American sports we will eventually look at how each of those teams honor those who played for them in the past. As such it is newsworthy to us that the Philadelphia Flyers retired the number 88 of Eric Lindros.

Lindros was drafted first overall by the Quebec Nordiques in 1991 and famously refused to report to the team. He sat out a year and was traded to the Flyers in a megadeal and he would immediately become the face of the franchise. A power forward in every sense of the word, Lindros’ imposing size was complimented with finesse skills. In the 1994-95 strike shortened season, Lindros was named the Hart Trophy winner while also earning First Team All Star Honors. The following season Lindros had a career high 115 Points and was named a Second Team All Star. In 1997, he led the Flyers to a Stanley Cup Final and was the playoffs leading scorer, though the team went down to defeat to the Detroit Red Wings.

As big and as powerful as Lindros was, his style of play made him injury prone and more specifically he began to get concussed often. He also suffered a collapsed lung, which was followed by a team edict for him to fly back to Philadelphia (this occurred in Nashville). He didn’t, and had he done so he would have likely died in the plane.

The injuries led to a public battle between Lindros and Flyers management, namely GM Bobby Clarke who questioned his star’s toughness. During the 2000-01 season, Lindros was cleared to return but refused to report and would sit out the remainder of the season. He would later be dealt to the New York Rangers but to say that the parting between the Flyers and Lindros was smooth would be an inaccurate one. Number 88 would play five more years in the NHL with New York, Toronto and the Dallas Stars before retiring.

Bridges were seemingly burned but Lindros would play in the Alumni Game at the 2012 Winter Classic at the request of GM, Paul Holmgren. Lindros would later be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2016 and this was mostly due to his work as a Philadelphia Flyer.

As a Flyer, Lindros was a six time All Star and he scored 659 Points over 486 Games, an incredible 1.36 Points per Game Average.

Lindros becomes the sixth player to have his number retired by the Flyers. He joins Bernie Parent (1), Mark Howe (2), Barry Ashbee (4), Bobby Clarke (7) and Bill Barber (16).

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate Eric Lindros for achieving this latest honor.