Finally, The Winner of the Hall of Fame Contest!!!

Well, I am about 2 weeks overdue, but we finally got around to pulling the winner of the Collective Troll Hall of Fame contest. The winner will receive the 3 in-person autographs from Hall of Famers Lou Boudreau, Bobby Doerr and George Kell, plus a whole bunch of cards and other goodies all related to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In conjunction with the contest all entrants voted for 5 players to be inducted into the Blog-O-Sphere Hall of Fame. Those players were Bert Blyleven, Shoeless Joe, Pete Rose, Fred McGriff and Roberto Alomar. Those who voted earned one copy of their name in the name and those who linked the contest on their blog earned two entries. I printed out everyone’s name the appropriate number of times and folded them all up and dumped them into a hat and waited for the wife (the legendary Esther Gin N Juice) to return home from roller derby practice, apply the blindfold and pick from the 62 different folded pieces of paper. The papers were shaken and stirred and then a winner was chosen…It was …Please imagine a drum roll or something dramatic as I tell you who the winner chose on his HOF ballot. The winning entrant selected Joe Jackson and Pete Rose who both got in. Dale Murphy, who despite some threats from Captain Canuck didn’t even crack the 10 and admitted steroid user and home run hitter extraordinaire Mark McGwire, who surprising to me received only one other vote. His final vote was for former Birmingham Black Baron’s shortstop Artie Wilson. Artie had a spectacular, yet short Negro League career, followed up by a spectacular but short career in the PCL followed by a one year stint with the Giants. The winner (if he is reading this) probably already realizes that it is him and if you didn’t vote for these guys, you know you didn’t win either, but I am still trying to draw this thing out. Anyway, without further adieu, the winner is Rod from Portland, Oregon, the proprietor of the Padrographs blog!
Congrats Rod!!! (and I apologize for the really blurry shot here) Please get in touch and I will get these out for you ASAP! Thanks to all who voted and entered. If you didn't win, don't blame Esther! This was fun. Go Rays! Troll out.