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Hall of Fame Class 19 - Voters Send Three More to the Hall - Vlad Guerrero, Jim Thome
and Billy Pierce |
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Kilkenny’s Billy Pierce
Portsmouth’s Vladimir Guerrero
Jim Thome |
Voting for the TCBA Players’ Hall of Fame
Class 19 concluded this week with voters selecting three more players to join
the elite club. In a continuation of a theme from recent ballots, voters
seemed willing to recognize the contributions of Retro league players. This
time it was Billy Pierce, who joined contemporary players Vlad Guerrero and
Jim Thome to the hallowed halls. After
missing out by a mere 80 votes in Class 18 balloting, Billy Pierce finally got his Hall
invitation with 71% of the vote, just enough to push him through the doorway.
Pierce’s career totals put him in the top 50 in Wins (207), and Strikeouts
(2248), with an ERA of 3.01. Billy
played his entire career with the Kilkenny Gaelics, where he learned to swill Guinness and win
ball games. Ove 18 seasons, Pierce averaged nearly 12 wins per season. He
twice led the Gaelics to the post-season. In 1956,
Pierce was 17-7, leading the Gaelics to the
playoffs; and his 16 wins in 1961 helped Kilkenny claim the Brown Division
crown. Vlad Guerrero arrives in the
Hall on the strength of his bat. In his 15 seasons, all with Portsmouth, Guerrero smacked 450 home runs, 28th
on the all-time list. His 1536 RBI is the 26th most collected by a
TCBA player. Four times Vlad helped the Pubdwellers
to the post-season, including a 2000 Wildcard appearance during a season in
which he batted .360 and belted 51 home runs. Voters liked sluggers in this round of
voting, opening the Hall doors for another home run guy, Jim Thome.
Like Guerrero, Thome’s name appears all over the
All-time lists. But it is his 579 career homers, just 21 behind Babe Ruth,
that created room for Thome. So
feared was he as a batter that Thome was walked
1651 times, just eight less than Lou Gehrig. Thome
sits comfortably among some legendary players. Unlike Pierce and Guerrero, Thome played for six different teams in his 19-season
career. Originally drafted by Horseshoe Bay
in 1994, Thome’s impact was felt immediately as the
Polos claimed a Division crown. However, Thome
moved quickly to Hoboken for two seasons, where he returned to the playoffs
in 1996, and then on to Newmarket. It is for Ed Hebscher that Thome accumulated
280 of his homeruns. In 2003, Jim’s 67 homers led the EH’s to a second
consecutive Wildcard spot. In 2004 he moved on to Pennsylvania/Brooklyn,
where he played for six seasons, including four consecutive playoff
appearances and a league championship with the Keystones in 2006 before
ending his career in Newark, where he had one more
post-season fling. Two
catchers, Ivan Rodriguez and Roy Campanella, each received solid support and
will appear in a future class for reconsideration, as will outfielder Larry Doby. All but one of the others, including Jamie Moyer,
have been removed from future Hall of Fame consideration due to lack of
support. Voting
for Class 20 will be held in January 2019. The vote totals for Class 19 are
listed below: Class 19 Voting Totals:
*Appeared on the list for the final
time. Source: TCBA Encyclopedia |
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