The East Coast Hall of Fame Committee is proud to announce our 2011 Hall of Fame Selections to the Police Softball Hall of Fame. First of all I want to thank all of the East Coast Hall of Fame Committee members for their dedicated work and professionalism during our voting process. The committee was selected due to the respect they have earned and the different geographical areas where they live. The committee members are Andy Wurm, Dave Woolfe, Dan Spinelli, Richie Ware, Robbie Freitas, David Stevens, Terry Dugan, Terry Ables, Scott Affholter, Richie Malek, Ron Breeden, Kevin Morris, Vic Ortalano and Steve Matakovich.
The voting process was conducted confidentially with voters voting on the 11 nominees in rank order from # 1 as their top choice and # 11 as their last choice. These votes were sent to me and I added up the numbers and established a rank order. The top 4 selections received significantly lower numbers (which is good) and there was a large gap from the top 4 and nominees #5 through #11.
Those not selected this year should feel very proud just being nominated by the membership and several repeat nominees have made significant progress each year. We have tried to find a balance between making this process attainable yet not as difficult as MLB. Our belief was to vote on induction based on the “significant and positive impact” the nominees have made on our sport. Using that as a guideline we specifically looked at the nominees playing ability, longevity in the game, sportsmanship and manager/coaching/sponsorship.
With that I am proud to announce the 2011 East Coast Hall of Fame Selections are (in no specific order):
- Richie “KOKO” Ware – NY Metro/NYPD Blues.
- Eddie Robinson – Ohio Lawmen.
- Rick “Slick” Tirelli – NYPD Blues.
- Barry Midthum – Minnesota Lawmen.
Respectfully
Dennis Leonard – JAX612
EC HOF Chairman
NOTE FROM POLICESOFTBALL.COM: All past Hall of Fame inductees are invited to be on the field at World Series VII to welcome the 2011 inductees into a very special club. (More information will be posted on that as we get closer.)
PoliceSoftball.com would like to thank Dennis Leonard and the committee for the hard work they do and have done for several years now. The committee must find balance when deciding who has made a "significant and positive impact" on our sport and who may not be at that point right now. it is a difficult job and the committee takes the responsibility very serious. As always, if you have any feedback on this issue, contact PoliceSoftball.com or any member on the committee.
We would like to thank all the people who have taken the time to write up quality nominations which allowed the committee to do a quality job. If your nominee did not make it this year, please resubmit an updated nomination next year when the nomination period opens. We will leave the nominations posted on the message board for a few weeks so if you need to copy it, please do so while it is still posted.
