One of the better players of the 1970s who seemed to fly perpetually under the radar was Andy Messersmith, who finished in the top five in Cy Young votes three times.

Brett Butler was only an All-Star once, but don’t let that fact misguide you to what was one hell of a baseball player.

Nap Rucker played an even ten seasons with Brooklyn (1907-16), back when the franchise had intriguing team names like the Superbas and the Robins.

Willie Davis played most of his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers, where he did an excellent job at the top of the order and defensively in Centerfield.

The Los Angeles Dodgers were an excellent team in the 1970s and early 80s, and Ron Cey was a part of it.

In 1981, a "mania" took over Los Angeles.  Some would say it took over the entire baseball world.  That was "Fernandomania" in honor of Mexican hurler, Fernando Valenzuela.

Don Newcombe was more than a great Pitcher, as he was a trailblazer in terms of African Americans in baseball.

Born in the United States, but raised in Mexico, Adrian Gonzalez would have a very good career playing First Base in the Major Leagues.

Gonzalez first debuted for the Texas Rangers, but it was in San Diego where he first came into prominence.  With the Padres, he was a three-time All-Star and would secure four consecutive 30 plus HR seasons, including a career-high 40 in 2009.  That year, he led the National League in Walks (119).

Regular visitors of Notinhalloffame.com know that we are slowly working on the top 50 of every major team in the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB. Once that is done, we intend to look at how each team honor their past players and executive.  As such it is news to us that as part of the $100 million dollar renovation project at Dodger Stadium, a statue of Hall of Fame Pitcher, Sandy Koufax, will be erected.

The statue of Koufax will be the second one outside of Dodger Stadium as there is currently one of Jackie Robinson, which is currently in the leftfield reserve, though that will be moved to the new centerfield plaza.

Dodger Stadium is the third oldest stadium in Major League Baseball after Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago.

The Dodgers hope to have everything complete ahead of hosting the 2020 All-Star Game.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com are excited about the new changes to Dodger Stadium and for Sandy Koufax who has achieved another level of baseball immortality.

Maury Wills did not make the Major Leagues until he was 26 years old yet still managed to rack up over 2,000 hits in his career.  What numbers would he have put up if he cracked a big league roster earlier and would it have been enough to make him a member of the Hall of Fame?

We imagine that there are younger baseball fans that are oblivious that there really was a Tommy John and that it was not just the name of a surgery.  This would be unfortunate, as Tommy John has to go down as one of the most durable pitchers in baseball history.

The common trend in Baseball Hall of Fame voting is for a solid candidate to get a healthy double-digit vote in his first year of eligibility and watch that number climb slowly as more and more perspective is put on their career.  For Steve Garvey, the more the Hall looked at his career, the more they seemed to talk themselves out of his induction as evidenced by the way his votes were cut in half from his first year (41.6) to (21.1) in his last year.

What a year 1988 was for Orel Hershiser.  He didn’t just win the Cy Young that year, getting better to the point of being unstoppable as the season wound down.  He broke Don Drysdale’s consecutive scoreless innings record to end the regular season than went on to win three games in the post season (including one save) and propelled the Dodgers to a World Series win and won the World Series MVP in the process.  What a year!

In the late 70’s Hall of Fame pitcher, Don Sutton famously noted that Steve Garvey was not the best player on the Dodgers, it was Reggie Smith. Garvey may have been the most popular, but Sutton was not alone in his assessment of Reggie Smith.

A lot of baseball players take flak for their high salaries. One of those who did was Kevin Brown who was the first man in professional baseball to sign a contract worth $100 Million. Sadly for Brown, his deterioration rendered that one of the worst contracts as during the final years of his career he was not a player who should have been amongst the games highest paid.