MLB Showdown Obsession

  The American Dream Dusty Rhodes may never have been allowed to hoist up the WWF Title...but apparently he did become a world champion in baseball... The real baseball Dusty Rhodes was an April Fools character all on his own. His manager Leo Durocher had some crazy exploits to share that always involved one of his favorite bench options. As the card suggests, it's never a good idea to mix alcohol and baseball. Unless you're David Wells, your ability is impaired when you're intoxicated. The real Bud Weiser may have been drunk the entire time. Yes, Mr. Veach, we do see you...as a member of the Cleveland Spiders, a team I haven't had the chance to feature before. And just like with alcohol, drugs have a bad effect on your ability. Mysterious Walker missed his calling to be a super spy. Either way, he looks SHARP in his team photo.

 At this point in time, the HoF voting process has been tweaked constantly. And the growing pains have been numerous as well. The 1956 election was not short on complaints, one of them being the notion that not all the players admitted to Cooperstown were of the same quality. After Cronin and Greenberg were admitted, it brought the total population to 81 in the Hall, and not all of them are of Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson quality. Changes were proposed. One major change that was in place, as mentioned before, was the waiting period. Such a decision is the law to this day. Another change that we accept as normal today is the rule that you can only vote for as many as 10 names on the ballot. Before, 10 was the *minimum* you had to vote for. This change ensured that future selection tot he HoF would be of a higher quality.

The death of Manager Miller Huggins during the 1929 season was a major blow to the morale of the New York Yankees. The 2-time defending champions weren't catching the Athletics that season, but the next couple of seasons saw no improvement either. But with Joe McCarthy at the helm in 1932, the Bronx Bombers didn't just return to the top of the league, they returned to their dominant form with a 107-47 record. 2nd place Philadelphia were 13 games back by seasons end, while last place Boston finished 64 games in the cellar. Meeting NY in the World Series were the Chicago Cubs, who had a slightly more uncertain time holding off the Pirates to claim the NL flag in '32. When the World Series began, the Yankees kept up their dominating ways, sweeping the lowly Cubs in four straight games, and extending their then record World Series winning streak to 12 games (since broken by the '96-'00 Yankees) The Yankees are known for their insane runs of championships and dynasties. ...

When the Hall of Fame voting began, there really weren't many rules in place for voting. Now into the 1950's rules were still being fine tuned and tweaked. With the Veterans Committee in place, no one who retired more than 25 years before were allowed on the BBWAA ballot. That limit was extended to 30 years by the 1955 vote. Everything before that (as well as managers, owners and umpires for consideration) were handled by the Veterans Committee. Also, the "wait 5 years" policy was established, meaning that anyone who retired after 1949 had to wait for a shot. 1955 gave us four new HoF members from the BBWAA vote, something that wouldn't be seen again for a long time. The glut of elite players was slowly being worked through and voted in, and it wouldn't be such a large collection of players voted in for another 60 years. The Veterans Committee added another two names to the collection from yesteryear.

 It still feels like the last WBC had just ended, but here we are determining the final teams that will qualify for the 2026 competition. Most teams from the previous run automatically qualified, but the last place team from each round 1 pool dropped out and had to earn their trip back against four hopeful upstarts. China, Taiwan, Nicaragua and Colombia all finished last in 2023, while Spain, South Africa, Germany and Brazil are looking to punch their ticket. Now, this isn't the main attraction, so players in MLB are much less inclined to abandon their parent clubs in the middle of spring training to go compete, so there countries will rely mainly on lower level players and even a few former major leaguers. As a result, the qualifiers have a much weaker appeal without big names to market. There are still some familiar names involved in the showcases, with only China entering play with absolutely zero MLB names, so let's take a look at the players involved who have logged time i...