Phil Niekro Passes

A knuckleballer and Hall of Famer.

2021 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

Who makes it in.. lots of first time names on the list.

Favre Goes into Packer Hall

It was a No. 4 weekend in Green Bay and on the NFL Network this weekend as Brett Favre was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame.

Duke Snider, Baseball Hall of Famer Dies at 84

One of the "Boys of Summer", Duke Snider who defeated the New York Yankees in 1955 to bring home the Brooklyn Dodgers' only World Series title, died today at a hospital in Escondido, California. He was 84.

Known as the "Duke of Flatbush," Snider was an eight-time All Star with 407 career home runs. He was one of three center-field greats -- including the New York Giants' Willie Mays and the Yankees' Mickey Mantle -- who helped turn the 1950s into New York's golden age of baseball.

During his 11 seasons in Brooklyn, Snider helped the Dodgers win six National League pennants and the 1955 World Series. (He won another World Series in 1959 after the Dodgers had moved to Los Angeles.) Inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1980, he hit at least 40 home runs every year from 1953 to 1957, including the last one at the team's ballpark, Ebbets Field.

Snider later managed in the Dodgers’ and Padres’ farm systems and served as a broadcaster for the Padres and the Montreal Expos.

He is survived by his wife, Beverly; two sons, Kevin and Kurt; and and two daughters, Pam and Dawna.

Ron Santo Dead at 70: Can We Now Put Him in the Hall of Fame

Legendary Chicago Cubs player and broadcaster Ron Santo died Thursday night in Arizona. He was 70.

Friends of Santo's family said the North Side icon lapsed into a coma on Wednesday before dying Thursday. Santo died of complications from bladder cancer, WGN-AM 720 reported.

Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts released a statement: "My siblings and I first knew Ron Santo as fans, listening to him in the broadcast booth. We knew him for his passion, his loyalty, his great personal courage and his tremendous sense of humor. It was our great honor to get to know him personally in our first year as owners.

"Ronnie will forever be the heart and soul of Cubs fans."

The former Cubs third baseman had continued to work as a Cubs analyst on WGN, the team's flagship radio broadcast, despite his health issues. He was expected to return for the 2011 season. He missed several road trips in 2010 but insisted he would return.

Former Cubs President John McDonough compared Santo to Harry Caray, another baseball broadcasting legend, noting neither had a filter, broadcast with unvarnished emotion and were enormously entertaining.

Santo mangled names, sometimes lost track of what was going on in a game and occasionally didn't realize some player had been on the roster for months, but none of that mattered because people loved it, McDonough said. "We almost thought he was doing it on purpose," he said. "It added so much entertainment value."

You had to like Santo because he was a Cubs fan and made no apologies for his on-air cheerleading or his utter frustration over a Cub's misplay.

Santo never witnessed his longtime goal of election to the Baseball Hall of Fame despite career numbers that mark him as one of baseball's all-time great third basemen. He finished with a .277 average over 15 major league seasons, with 342 home runs and 1,331 runs batted in.

Though Santo came close to Cooperstown enshrinement in the last decade in voting by the Veterans Committee, he always fell short. In 2007, Santo received 39 of the 48 votes necessary to reach the 75 percent threshold of the living 64 Hall of Famers to cast a ballot. His 61 percent lead all candidates and no one was elected to the Hall.

It was the fourth straight time the Veterans Committee had failed to elect a member, leaving Santo frustrated.

Santo was up for the Hall of Fame on 19 occasions, and first appeared on the Veterans Committee ballot in 2003. He got his hopes up on every occasion.

"Everybody felt this was my year," he said after the last vote in December 2008. "I felt it. I thought it was gonna happen, and when it didn't. ... What really upset me was nobody got in.

Santo began his major league career with the Cubs in 1960, and spent one season with the White Sox in 1974. He earned National League Gold Glove awards five straight seasons from 1964 to 1968 and was a nine-time NL All-Star. He was one of the leaders of the 1969 team that blew the division lead to the New York Mets, a season indelibly etched in Cubs' history.

Though Santo never made the Hall of Fame, his number was retired by the Cubs. He said that was equivalent to being inducted in Cooperstown. Being a Cub, and playing at Wrigley Field, meant the world to Santo.

In recent years, Santos had a couple wild mishaps while announcing, his toupee caught fire in the Shea Stadium press box in New York on Opening Day 2003 after he got too close to an overhead space heater. And last spring in Mesa, Ariz., Santo lost his front tooth while biting into a piece of pizza.  He gave his body and soul to the Cubs while playing and while broadcasting.

Here are Santos' lifetime stats.  You tell me if he is Hall worthy.  The 343 home runs are like hitting almost 500 today, the hits and RBIs are huge, and his contribution to baseball speaks volumes.

             
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