Sometimes, the universe lets you know that maybe - just maybe - you're doing something right.
A few weeks ago, an email arrived in my inbox from the Latin Baseball Hall of Fame, informing me that I had received the honor of voting for five players for enshrinement in the LBHOF's Class of 2026.
Voting for any of baseball's hall of fame was a possibility I hadn't really considered in a while. I was, briefly, a member of the Baseball Writer's Association of America when I was still working at newspapers, but those days are long behind me, and I didn't string together the 10 years of membership necessary to gain a vote for Cooperstown.
To both baseball writers and fans alike, who gets into a hall of fame - be it Cooperstown or anywhere else - is an endless source of debate whether you're voting for players, managers, broadcasters, or executives.
And to be honest, it comes with a lot of responsibility, regardless of which hall of fame you're voting for. Since baseball didn't really police itself regarding performance enhancing drugs for a long time, hall of fame voters, rightly or wrongly, bore that cross in the decades following Major League Baseball's steroid era.
Every time that there's a Veteran's Committee vote for Cooperstown, fans love to bellyache over the worthiness of the players elected, seemingly forgetting that the Veteran's Committee votes on players who were overlooked by the writers but are deemed worthy of induction by their peers.
There were 55 finalists nominated for the Latin Baseball Hall of Fame this year, and it was hard to narrow this year's 55 finalists down to just five. There were a number of players who weren't finalists - especially in the veteran category - who are deserving of induction.
For example, had he been a finalist, I'd have voted for Nelson Barrera. He's the all-time home run leader in Mexico's Liga Mexicana de Beisbol, and though he only had a brief stint in the minor leagues when the Chicago White Sox brought him to Triple-A Buffalo in 1985, his longevity and record-setting career in Mexico is certainly worthy of induction in the Latin Baseball Hall of Fame.
Among the other veterans were Cuban-born Major League Baseball legends Jose Canseco Rafael Palmeiro, fantastic Puerto Rico-born catcher Benito Santiago and stalwart MLB starter John Candelaria, Dominican-born Toronto Blue Jays outfielder George Bell, among numerous others who were, at minimum, worthy of inclusion on the list of candidates if not more.
We found out today that four players - Albert Pujols, Edwin Encarnacion, Yadier Molina, and Magglio Ordonez - were elected in this year's Latin Baseball Hall of Fame class.
Below are the players who each received my vote, and my explanation of why I voted for them.
Wladimir Balentien, Curacao - One of the things I wanted to consider when I cast my ballot was a player's impact beyond both Latin America and Major League Baseball, and while Balentien's MLB resume is short - he played in just 170 MLB games with three different teams over parts of three seasons and hit 14 homers in the big show - he had a significant impact overseas. Balentien crossed the Pacific in 2011, joining the NPB's Yakult Swallows and leading the Pacific League in homers with 31 in his first season in 422 plate appearances. In 11 seasons in Japan with the Swallows and the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, Balentien hit 301 homers and set the single-season home run record when he clubbed 60 dingers in 2012, eclipsing the record set by Sadaharu Oh in 1964 and later tied by Tuffy Rhodes and Alex Cabrera. After playing in Japan, Balentien played one season in each of Mexico's professional leagues and appeared in two Caribbean Series for Curacao, hitting two home runs in 2024 at Miami's loanDepot Park, including a memorable 417-foot blast against Panama. He represented the Netherlands at the World Baseball Classic in 2017 and 2023. While Balentien's MLB resume may be short, the totality of his work earned him my vote.
Victor Martinez, Venezuela - I first saw Martinez play in 2002 when he was tearing up the Eastern League with the Akron Aeros, the Double-A affiliate of Cleveland. There are a few players I remember from my days sitting in the stands at Mercer County Waterfront Park who, as prospects, were appointment viewing, and Martinez, the Indians' top catching prospect, was one of them. He went on to have a 16-year MLB career that began later that season, and he posted an outstanding .295/.360/.455 slash line over 1,973 games in MLB, clubbing 246 dingers and driving in 1,178 runs. The knock on Martinez was that he had a somewhat weak arm and was a defensive liability, but in his best seasons, including the 2014 campaign where he finished second in the American League MVP voting after leading the AL in on-base percentage and the Major Leagues in OPS, all saw him play at least a portion of his games behind the plate. As one of the best players to come out of Venezuela, he's a worthy addition to the Latin Baseball Hall of Fame.
Yadier Molina, Puerto Rico - If anyone defined the term "franchise catcher," it's Molina, who won nine Gold Gloves in 19 MLB seasons, all in St. Louis. He was a 10-time All-Star who backstopped the Cardinals to two World Series titles and four appearances in the fall classic. He twice appeared for Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic, when the island finished second in 2013 and 2017, and his 2,184 games behind the plate rank fourth all-time.
Livan Hernandez, Cuba - Hernandez was a workhorse, pitching 17 MLB seasons with nine different teams, leading the Major Leagues twice and the National League three times in innings pitched. He broke into the Majors with the Florida Marlins in 1997, a season that saw him finish second in the NL Rookie of the Year voting and win the NLCS and World Series MVP awards as the Marlins won their first World Series. Three of his best years came in Montreal in the franchise's final two seasons at Olympic Stadium and their first in Washington, posting an ERA under 4.00 each year. His 255 innings pitched in 2004 remain the most in the Major Leagues to date.
Albert Pujols, Dominican Republic - Pujols is, simply put, the greatest Latin player of all time, full stop. The 2001 National League Rookie of the Year finished his career with more than 3,000 games played in Major League Baseball, 703 homers, 2,218 RBIs, two World Series titles, two Gold gloves, three MVP awards, six Silver Sluggers, and seven 40-homer season. He also was the MVP of the 2004 National League Championship Series, won the NL batting title in 2003, led the league in RBIs in 2008, and won the Roberto Clemente Humanitarian Award in 2008.