BackPocket9Ball said:
Steve,
I have to ask, why wasn't Jose Parica among the inductees to the hall of fame this year? He's won a similar number of one pocket titles as Efren has, and has beaten all of the best for 15 years.
Also, Buddy Hall, who has won several titles himself?
Like Ed Kelley, Steve Cook and Marshall Carpenter, Hall and Parica were both on the ballot, they just didn't receive quite as many votes as those that were inducted. To be honest, I feel much worse about the well-deserving guys that
weren't even on the ballot, like Pat Fleming, Earl Heisler, Johnny Ervolino and Rags Fitzpatrick!
The list of inducted players that did get in this first time was
straight from the balloting we held here on the OnePocket.org forum. Grady was the top vote getter, and it seemed fitting to do his presentation at his own tournament in Gulfport, which we did back in December. At that time, Grady suggested the idea of a dinner to honor all of the inductees.
We had originally been thinking of only a handful of inductees this first year, but what with all the recent deaths of the senior class of
One Pocket players (basically the whole Johnston City generation is either deceased or somewhat at risk), it suddenly seemed imperative to go a little deeper into the balloting, so more of those older players could be honored while they are still alive and well enough to enjoy the experience themselves. That's why we brought in the next ten (plus Grady) for the class of 2004 inductions (2004 because that is when the elections took place -- even though the induction ceremony was 2005 for all but Grady).
This kind of thing has honestly been overdue for a long time, and so there is quite a backlog of deserving players to start with. That backlog includes quite a few great, great players that certainly might have or could have or should have been in the first group -- it just didn't work out that way in the voting. But IMHO, no matter where you cut off the list of inductees, deserving candidates would be left out. I prefer to think of those well deserving candidates that didn't make it this first year as
players to look forward to honoring next year! Or the year after, or the year after that, because this was just the first year, and we get to look forward to new players being added every year...
Of course, there is no telling who will live and who will not from year to year. Yet, seeing how much this honor was appreciated by this group of guys, and seeing the effort some of them had to make to get there given their health (especially in Bug's case), underscores that the timing was right.
I look forward to both next year's election process and the presentations as well -- let the debate begin!