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Standing among the best

Halls of fame are, by their very nature, meant to be exclusive.

They’re designed to honor the top contributors in a community, a profession or some other category. While each has a specific set of criteria that inductees are supposed to be judged against, the subjective side of the equation means there always will be questions about who undoubtedly should be recognized, who a good case can be made for receiving the honor and who might seem to be a good fit for induction but who, for whatever reason, might not ever get the needed votes.

There have been a couple of examples during the past several weeks, coming from a couple of different halls of fame.

One came on Dec. 8, when it was learned that former Pirate star Dave Parker had been selected for enshrinement into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Parker, who played a good portion of his career with the Pirates and was a leader of the We Are Family team that won the 1979 World Series, earned his spot by finishing with 14 votes from the 16-member Classic Baseball Era Committee.

Statistics compiled by Parker during his 19-year career — 11 of which were spent with the Pirates — provided a compelling case. His lifetime batting average was .290, and of his 2,712 hits, 339 were home runs, 526 were doubles and 75 were triples. He won batting titles in 1977 — with an average of .338 –and 1978 –with an average of .334.

He won three Gold Glove awards as a right fielder and was an all-star seven times, including 1979, when he had a record-setting two assists in the all-star game. Both were made in the long-ago demolished Seattle Kingdome and both are memorable — nailing Jim Rice of the Red Sox at third base in the seventh inning and Brian Downing of the Angels at the plate in the eighth inning — and they are worth watching if you have the chance.

After all of the success he had in Pittsburgh — and Cincinnati, Oakland, Milwaukee, Anaheim and Toronto, where he also played — the hall never called. Some say his lifetime statistics are just short of hall-worthy production. Some say he lacked consistency during his career. Others point to his involvement with the Pittsburgh drug trials that gave a black eye to the game in 1985.

Parker, who is 73 and suffers from Parkinson’s disease, was inducted into the Reds’ hall of fame in 2014 and the Pirates’ hall of fame in 2022. On July 27, he and the late Dick Allen, who grew up about 60 miles from here in Wampum, Pa. — the only other person to make it from this year’s classic era ballot — will join the rest of this year’s honorees — whose names will be announced on Jan. 21 — in Cooperstown.

While Parker had a long wait for his enshrinement — he appeared on the Baseball Writers of America Ballot 15 times between 1997 and 2011 and never got the needed number of votes — another all-time favorite also finally earned a spot in an important hall of fame, one that takes on even more importance this time of year.

That would be My Little Pony, who has at last become a member of the National Toy Hall of Fame. It was an honor that was a long time coming for the mini-horses that were first introduced in the 1980s and reintroduced in 2003 — My Little Pony had been a finalist for enlightenment seven times.

Hasbro’s creation was one of three toys selected to be honored in the hall, which is located inside the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y. This year’s other selections were the Phase 10 card game and Transformers.

They were selected from a field of 12 finalists that included some pretty solid toys: Hess Toy Trucks, balloons, the game Apples to Apples, “Choose Your Own Adventure” gamebooks, remote-controlled vehicles, the Pokemon Trading Card game, Sequence, the stick horse and the trampoline.

Each of this year’s nominees certainly met the hall’s standards, which are deceptively simple: They must be widely recognized and remembered; they must have enjoyed popularity across generations; they must help to foster learning, creativity or discovery through play; and they have profoundly changed play or toy design.

My Little Pony, for instance, combines several traditional forms of doll play with the natural fascination with horses children have, explained Michelle Parnett-Dwyer, curator of dolls and toys at the museum. More than 4 million Phase 10 decks are sold each year in 60 countries in more than 20 languages by maker Mattel, Mirek Stolee, curator of board games and puzzles, said. And, Transformers are well-suited to the way kids play and the imagination, added Chris Bensch, chief curator.

According to the museum, 84 toys have won spots in the hall of fame since 1998. Missing are two of my all-time favorites, Tudor Electric Football and the Strat-O-Matic sports simulation games. Electric football — the iconic game which features play on the vibrating metal field — and Strat-O-Matic — which uses a combination of dice and cards to simulate baseball, football, basketball and hockey games — have never been able to make the cut.

Come Wednesday morning, toys of all shapes and sizes will be found under Christmas trees around the world. Some will be played with for a short period of time and then put away forever and be forgotten. Others, meanwhile, will find a special place in the hearts of children — and adults — and will continue to be enjoyed for many hours and across several generations.

Those are the special toys — and the ones that someday will be enshrined into the toy hall of fame.

Merry Christmas.

(Gallabrese, a resident of Steubenville, is executive editor of the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times)

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