Perfect Score: Hall of Fame Week 10
Hosted by SIBR, written by BNN Staff et al
Lenny Crumb
Lenny Crumb hits a solo home run!
On the first at-bat of the first game in modern Ohio Worms history, Lenny Crumb cemented their name in history. The Discord flew past at frightening speed, celebrating a moment that all OG Worms fans remember with great pride. For just a glimpse, we all wondered: Worms good?
The answer was no, as the Worms went on to lose that game and suffer the worst season in Blaseball history. Our respect for Lenny, however, would grow and grow. After some solid home run seasons, Lenny revealed their true talent: triples. Lenny was among the top 10 in triples for Seasons 13, 14, 18, and 19. Crumb also was among the league leaders in Hits, RBIs, and Runs for Season 14, and that’s back when the Worms were still quite bad. It got to the point where the Worms tailored their stadium to support more extra-base hits, so Lenny could squeeze in a few extra triples alongside Loubert Ji-Eun and Scratch Deleuze. Looking back on that first Worms moment, I think perhaps it wasn’t a shot into the upper deck, but an inside the park home run – a triple that Lenny decided to extend just a liiiiittle bit further.
More than statistics, Lenny’s legend has always been about what they mean to the team. They’ve been the Worms’ anchor, batting first ever since the Worms rejoined the ILB. A hit Garages song tells the “tlall tale” about Crumb’s exploits saving the league. Worm lore holds that Lenny bakes cupcakes for the team before every game. And every time my one-year-old son sees his Lenny plush, he shouts “Nee! Nee!” and gives Lenny a big hug.
If you ask Lenny about the Hall of Fame, they’ll say “C’mon now. Vote for Vess!” But Lenny Crumb will always be a Hall of Famer for fans of the lore and legend of Ohio Worms blaseball.
-Patronus
Lucas Petty
Lucas started their career in Kansas City as a relatively unassuming replacement pitcher, having 2.7 pitching stars at the time of their debut in Season 18. They made great use of the Kansas City FreshDome’s Fax Machine bouncing up and down for the likes of Uncle Plasma, Leach Ingram, PolkaDot Zavala and Kina Larsen. In this time they had a solid steady growth due to office equipment and were off to Los Angeli in exchange for Hall of Famer Michelle Sportsman. It isnt easy replacing the pitcher who is essentially their own run support but Lucas was a solid replacement becoming a quality number 2 pitcher behind Yummy Elliott. With an ERA- of 85 in their time in LA, and of course…
Lucas Petty faxes down for Yummy Elliott.
Yummy Elliott
There is a case to be made that Yummy Elliott is the best pitcher to primarily ply their trade in Wild Low, the division which hosts the most top 50 WhAT hitters. While facing some of the slugging greats, Yummy has accumulated the sixth highest wins above “replacement” (WhAT) among pitchers. Yummy was also unfortunately on the losing end of the greatest game ever pitched, the walk-off un-run, which may have been the first shutout loss in league history. The other superlative case which can be made is that Yummy is the greatest overhanded pitcher to debut in Expansion Era, with the closest peer being current Hall of Famer Jolene Willowtree.
Yummy Elliott faxes down for Vito Kravitz.
Vito Kravitz
Vito Kravitz is a fascinating case in being in the right place at the right time. One of the best strikeout pitchers in seasons 15-18, Vito dominated the strikezone with absurd strikeout to walk ratios, being top 10 in each of those seasons, while having a heavier workload than the average pitcher being on the short Tacos rotation. Vito’s hitting career however…
Vito Kravitz faxes down for Lucas Petty.
Lucas Petty again
Lucas Petty likes to party. The career growth in the late expansion era is evident by the impressive seasons 23 and 24 pitched by Lucas as the world was crumbling around them contributing with WhAT over 6 in each of those seasons. Lucas is definitely one to watch in the future, as they were building momentum for a superstar career at unfortunately the wrong time.
Lucas Petty faxes down for Vito Kravitz.
Vito Kravitz again
was abysmal. Vito having spent majority of his career at the plate, has put up an above average hitting season in only 2 of the 13 seasons spent hitting and the chant of “Vito x Ground” rings over and over at La Taqueria. Vito’s hitting career has negatively impacted the Tacos as well as their original team the Flowers. While being a low sample size of only 62 games, Vito’s season 3 in Boston includes a -39.7 OPS+ (this is not a typo). Fortunately, Vito has been a great pitcher for the Tacos in the middle of the expansion era.
Vito Kravitz faxes down for Yummy Elliott.
Yummy Elliott again
Yummy also has a case to be made on the strength of their post season performances. A career postseason ERA of 2.76 is impressive and a 6-1 record in the Season 17 championship run having to pull double duty for the shelled Wyatt Mason IV is a testament to their dominance when it mattered most. Vote for Yummy Elliott for the Hall of Fame
-DeeJay (@BlaseballACo)
Dervin Gorczyca
“Grrr… Groraowl…. Ro!
Groaowwrawwwa. RaOwaoaoww aowwaWRrrgRRGGrrr. GRRRR. Grawwwaa WROROAAR. Grrraaaaa groowlll RoarARrrararGarhhhh. GRaawwaarrrgggh! Gragh hrhaarrr ROAARragghg. Wawarrgghwhawhafgh. Graawwwgrrrgghhh! GRAWWAGGRrrghhhwroraorrarrh. Grararggwawarooaoahahhwa…. GRRR….
GRowalwlargghawhwhahrrhghgh. Grhwo Grarghghrhwa rwrhgwowow. Grrghrr hghrhwawarrorararoroarg hrhhgrhaororhghrhgh. Grghrhwarhg hwhrhrhrorwrhgghh. FRrfhghghrawroraro ghrhwhw. Grghrhhrwaor hrhrhghrwar ooRowhrhaorwaogHwoh ohroghraowaorrrgghghg.
Growl.
GROWL.
GraowoaroraohahrGrhhrhghahwawr. Grawar ghwahwahtwrar. Gh. GH.”
-Dervin Gorczyca, on why you should eat Fruit by the Floot without unrolling them
-Aka
Kelvin Drumsolo
Are you bored of players who steal more than they get on base?
Overwhelmed by pitchers with absurd FIP-?
Or are you just bored of endlessly debating which of like seven absurdly good batters is the greatest of all time?
Then boy do I have the player for you!
Meet Kelvin Drumsolo.
Kelvin Drumsolo played some of the most blaseball during the Expansion Era and never posted a season OPS higher than 0.800. Kelvin Drumsolo has been on the stolen bases leaderboard exactly once, and in that same season was also on the caught stealing leaderboard. Kelvin Drumsolo had one of the worst postseason batting performances of a championship winning team. Kelvin Drumsolo is, in short, the sort of player whose team spent almost the entire Expansion Era not debating if Kelvin would be shadowed, just trying to decide who to shadow Kelvin for.
And yet, Kelvin Drumsolo is a player who has brought joy to our lives. Brought narrative, drive, determination. A player who has made an art of dodging consequences, of bouncing out of sticky situations stronger than ever before.
Kelvin might be on the wrong side of mediocre, but Kelvin is also the batter who hit the first hit and ran in the first run for the Core. Kelvin is the batter who bounced in and out of the rotation, fully tanking the S17 mechs and condemning better batters to the shadows in their wake. Kelvin is the batter who united the league in a frenzy of consequence-free plot-free uninhibited screaming, inflating both our wallets and our hearts. They’re Shellvin Drumswolo, they’re Kelvin Crimesolo, they were nearly Dunkvin Drumstroll-o but then we didn’t win Solo Stroll so that didn’t happen but the pun was great! And to many people, they’re simply the Great Drumsolo of the Great Drumsolo fame.
They’re a player who has made a career out of being funny, being a weird little footnote tacked on to every season. A career of dodging consequences and sparking joy. What more do you want? Someone who can actually play the game??? You demand too much. Just sit back, relax, and vote Drumsolo.
Support the campaign by purchasing a Kelvin Drumsolo shirt, a different Kelvin Drumsolo shirt, another different Kelvin Drumsolo shirt, a Kelvin Drumsolo mug and a Kelvin Drumsolo poster at blaseballcares.com
-nix (@moonofpluto)
Axel Cardenas
Axel Cardenas is the worst.
Now, some might read that as an emotional reaction to Axel. “Spludge,” this straw man might say, “you cover the Wings extensively, and are blinded to the full spectrum of awful in the league.” Or, “Spludge, we all saw his pitching in seasons 19-21, but that’s such a short amount of time.” Or, “Spludge, how can you sweepingly compare across eras and skill sets like that to even definitively define “the worst”?”
Well, I don’t have to worry about any of those, because I have numbers.
Axel Cardenas is in possession of the fourth worst career WhAT of all pitchers. The three people above him on that list all have at least 1300 more innings pitched than Axel (for example, Owen Picklestein, 3rd on the list and closest to Axel in innings pitched, pitched 2115 innings to Axels 765 and only cost his team 1.2 more wins). Axel also has the 10th worst career WhAT of all batters, though his plate appearances are pretty comparable to the notable names around him. Crucially, no player other than Axel is in the bottom 25 of WhAT in both pitching and hitting, which makes his total WhAT of -53.5 comfortably the worst in the league.
If we were voting for the “Hall of this player was exceptionally good”, then Axel should be disallowed with prejudice. But we’re not. We’re voting for the Hall of Fame, and surely being the absolute worst at the sport is worthy of recognition (also, I’m sure he’d hate it, which is a good enough reason for me to vote him in).
Hatfield Suzuki
Hatfield was a long-time Millennial in their Shadows since Season 1. Not until the Wills in Season 12 could the New York Millennials move Hatfield out, and they had done it the first chance they got. One of the better all-rounders in franchise history, Hatfield sported a notable defensive buff to a Team sorely lacking in it after repeated blooddrains in the late Expansion Era (in that Hatfield did not have poor defense).
They spent much of their career with the Millennials, becoming Undefined in the Season 20 Election. After becoming Negative in Season 20, thanks to Hall of Fame Millennial Thomas Dracaena, who was an Undertaker at the time, Hatfield was snapped up by the Hades Tigers…twice…by the Double Negative blessing in Season 21’s Elections. During their short run so far on the Tigers, they have performed adequately, and even attempted pitching during the Semi-Centennial.
While Hatfield may not be as impressive as other members of the ballot, they’re a workhorse of the lineup wherever she is and certainly memorable for many trips Elsewhere. The echoes of HAT TRICK and HATCATCH between the Ampitheater and Battin’ Island certainly show Suzuki has many fans out there.
-Clip Clipperson (@clip_ny)
