Two players who made history and a man who did an incredible job recording history are being inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
Pedro Martinez, Lloyd Moseby and historian, William Humber, have been unveiled as the class of 2018.
Martinez played 18 seasons in the major leagues and was a big part of the Boston Red Sox team that ended the “Curse of the Bambino” in 2004, but he rose to fame as a member of the Montreal Expos after being acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1993.
Martinez was a major reason the Expos owned the best record in baseball in 1994 when a strike cancelled the remainder of the season, costing the city of Montreal what may have been their best chance at winning a World Series.
That fact remained with Martinez even as he won with Boston. He declared at the time, “I would like to share this with the people in Montreal that are not going to have a team anymore. My heart and my ring is with them, too.”
Only four pitchers in Major League Baseball history have ended their careers with more than 3,000 strikeouts and fewer than 1,000 walks. Martinez is one of them.
He was an eight-time all-star and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in 2015.
Martinez was the first and only Expos player to win a Cy Young Award.
In 1978, the Toronto Blue Jays selected a charismatic left-handed hitter, second overall in the major league draft.
They had high hopes for Lloyd Moseby, but at that time would have had no idea the impact he would have in taking the Blue Jays from a fledgling franchise to their first American League East title and their arrival as a contending team.
Moseby put up strong offensive and defensive numbers throughout his 10 years as Toronto’s starting centre fielder and was named to the 1986 American League all-star team.
The Oakland, Calif., native was also with the Jays as they moved into the Skydome (now Rogers Centre) and captured their second division crown in 1989.
Moseby rounded out his major league career with the Detroit Tigers and then left to play in Japan before returning to rejoin the Blue Jays as a coach and then as an ambassador, a role he continues to hold today.
Moseby was the first member of the Toronto Blue Jays to win a Silver Slugger award.
William Humber is someone who is often referred to as Canada’s greatest baseball historian.
He is an author, who has written a number of books, including Let’s Play Ball: Inside the Perfect Game and Diamonds of the North: A Concise History of Baseball in Canada.
He is the only Canadian to serve as a member of the board of directors for the Society of American Baseball Research.
Humber is also the creator of a Seneca College course entitled, Baseball Spring Training for Fans. The course was put together in 1979 and continues to be taught today.
Humber, Moseby and Martinez will be formally inducted on June 16 at a ceremony held at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Marys.
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