Alright ladies and gentlemen, you are in for a treat today. Sure, we could talk about the Monday Night Football game last night that took place deep in the heart of Texas, and we will. But something else cool happened yesterday, the MLB Hall of Fame announced this years crop of eligible nominees! So we’ll talk some legends in our Stump Story of the Day. Don’t worry, we’ll touch on MNF, Daniel Jones, Inside the NBA, and more, in today’s edition of The Daily Stump.

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Today’s Trivia🧠

(answer at the bottom of the Stump!)

On This Day…

🏀 On this day in 2019, LeBron James recorded a 25-point, 11-rebound, 10-assist game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Just another night for the King, right?

This night in particular he became the first player in NBA history to record a triple-double against all 30 franchises in the NBA. Man, that’s a stat!

Today’s Stump Story…

⚾️ MLB HOF Ballot

Yesterday, the Baseball Writers Association of America announced the new class of MLB greats who are eligible to get into the Hall of Fame!

We’ll start with the newest faces that were added to the ballot. Highlighting the new candidates are long-time Mariners stars Ichiro Suzuki and Felix Hernandez, Yankee and Indians legend CC Sabathia, and Boston Red Sox mainstay Dustin Pedroia.

Ichiro joined Fred Lynn as the only player to win AL Rookie of the Year and AL MVP in the same season in 2001. He hit a career .311 batting average with the Mariners, Yankees, and Marlins. He had a single-season record 262 hits in 2004. CC Sabathia was a six-time All-Star, won the 2007 AL Cy Young Award, and totaled 3,093 strikeouts in his career. That ranks third among lefty pitchers all time. Felix Hernandez was also a six-time All-Star, the 2010 AL Cy Young Award winner, as well as pitched the 23rd Perfect Game in MLB history in 2012. He spent his entire career in Seattle. Those three most likely have the best chance of having their names selected for the HOF in their first year.

Some other notable first-year names are Carlos Gonzalez, Fernando Rodney, Ian Kinsler, Troy Tulowitzki, Hanley Ramirez, Adam Jones, and Curtis Granderson. All candidates have 10 years to reach the 75% vote threshold to be enshrined in the Hall.

The rest of the candidates are holdovers from previous years who are still within the 10-year window and have yet to reach the voting threshold. Most notably, reliever Billy Wagner received 284 votes, or 73.8% of voters, in last year’s ballot effort; he fell just five votes shy of enshrinement. He is in the final year of his 10-year eligibility window.

The rest of the holdovers contain some pretty impressive names that have either had their chances clouded by controversy, or their careers just haven’t stood the test of time to reach enshrinement. Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Andruw Jones, Carlos Beltran, and Bobby Abreu are all on the ballot but have struggled to receive votes due to the controversy surrounding their steroid use. All of those previously named failed to get above 35% of voters.

Other MLB greats like Chase Utley, Omar Vizquel, Jimmy Rollins, Andy Pettitte, Torii Hunter, and David Wright, among others, will also be on this year’s ballot as they still fall within the 10-year window.

The MLB Hall of Fame is arguably one of the toughest Hall of Fames to get into in all of professional American sports. The voters are traditionally hard to convince and certainly have a love for the history of the game. Hence why the steroid era has been such a hard sell for voters. As voters get younger, it’ll be interesting to see how they adapt and accept different eras of baseball.

Quick Hitters

🏈 MNF: Trouble in paradise if Dallas is considered paradise! Man oh man is the struggle real. A Cooper Rush led Cowboys team got throttled by the Houston Texans, 34-10, in Dallas! It was the Joe Mixon show in this game! He had a HAT TRICK of TDs! The Texans get another win to move to 7-4!

🏈 Daniel Jones has officially been demoted from the New York Giants starting QB position. The former first-round pick signed a four-year, $160m deal less than two years ago, and will now be officially listed as the third quarterback on the roster. The (2-8) Giants will hand the keys over to last year’s Italian sensation, Tommy DeVito. DeVito won three straight games last year after Jones and then backup QB Tyrod Taylor suffered injuries. The Giants are now in a position to be at the top of the 2025 Draft, where they will most likely selected a QB.

🏀 Inside the NBA is BACK BABY! The star-studded cast of Ernie Johnson Jr., Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal, will appear on ESPN and ABC starting with the 2025-26 season thanks to a partnership with TNT Sports and the NBA. The show will be independently produced by TNT over the term of the agreement, except when the show goes on the road (typically done during the playoffs). The show has won 21 Sports Emmy Awards and surrounds high-profile live NBA events. The agreement is part of a settlement after Warner Bros, the parent company of TNT Sports, sued the NBA in New York state court in August.

🏈 College Football Black Monday! After this past weekends round of games, there have been three head coaching firings. Ball State University let their long-time head coach Mike Neu go after four straight losses. Neu, who is an alumnus of Ball State, went 40-63 in his nine seasons in Muncie, Indiana. Former Texas head coach Tom Herman was let go from his latest gig at Florida Atlantic University, where he went 6-16 in just under two years in Boca Raton. The Owls will owe Herman north of $4m in contract guarantees. The least shocking of all the firings came in the form of UMass head coach Don Brown, who went 6-28 in his second stint as head man for the Minutemen. Brown has spent much of his career in New England, but the 69 year old is now looking for work.

💯Top Performers:

• 🏀 Nikola Vucevic (CHI): 29 points, 12 boards, 6 threes!

• 🏈 Joe Mixon (HOU): 109 yards, 3 TDs

• 🏀 Jimmy Butler (MIA): 30 points, 10 boards, 5 assists

• 🏀 Trae Young (ATL): 19 assists! WOW!

Stump Top Plays❗️❗️ 

🏒 Alex Ovechkin TURN BACK THE CLOCK!

⚾️ Paul Skenes approves!

🏀 Zach LaVine.. 5 STRAIGHT THREES!

🏈 A very LARGE individual scores an ELECTRIC TD!

💯 Full Scoreboards: MLB, Soccer, PGA, NFL, WNBA, NCAAF, NHL

Today’s Slate

*All times are ET*

🏈 NCAAF MACTION: Akron @ Kent State (7:00 PM on CBSSN), Western Michigan @ Central Michigan (7:30 PM on ESPN2), Northern Illinois @ Miami (OH) (8:00 PM on ESPN)

🏀 NBA: Cavs @ Celtics (7:00 PM on TNT), Denver @ Memphis (8:00 PM), New Orleans @ Dallas (8:30 PM), OKC @ San Antonio (10:30 PM on TNT), full schedule

🏀 CBB (M): East Texas A&M @ (3) UConn (7:00 PM FS1), (13) Purdue @ (15) Marquette (9:00 PM on FS1), (17) Cincinnati, (19) Kentucky, (20) Florida, (21) Ohio State, and (1) Kansas also on the court, full schedule

🏀 CBB (W): (9) Oklahoma @ Wichita State (7:00 PM), Bowling Green @ (13) West Virginia (7:00 PM), North Alabama @ (21) Nebraska (8:00 PM), full schedule

🏒  NHL: Oilers @ Senators (7:00 PM), Panthers @ Jets (8:00 PM), Rangers @ Canucks (10:00 PM), full schedule

Trivia Answer:

A. Roger Clemens! Despite having the most Cy Young Awards in MLB history (7), Clemens has not made it into the Hall of Fame due to controversy surrounding his use of steroids during his career. Clemens played during the era of baseball where steroid use was a dime a dozen.

Can’t thank you enough for sticking to the end of this thing we call The Daily Stump. If you know anybody who might want this bit of daily sports news in their life, send them this link! It would go a long way! Appreciate the hell out of you all!

Trees get chopped. Stumps hold strong!