The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame will announce this year’s inductees at 9 a.m. EST today. There is an endless list of names who are eligible to join the St. Marys, Ont., established halls. The annual induction ceremony will take place this summer on June 7th at the Hall of Fame grounds. Longtime Toronto Star sports scribe Dave Perkins will also receive his Jack Graney Award on the same weekend.

Canadian citizenship is not required to be inducted into the hall, as the list of inductees includes men and women who have made an impact on baseball in or for this country, from various aspects including playing, coaching, volunteering, umpiring, writing, and everything in-between. To be inducted, one must be nominated and then receive enough votes from the selection committee.

Six new members were added last year, including Blue Jays catcher Russell Martin and former big leaguer Jimmy Key. Let’s take a look at three people who could be next in line.

When Bautista joined the Blue Jays in an unassuming August 2008 trade, expectations were unsurprisingly low. It would be his fifth organization in his age-27 season, as he struggled to make a difference in any of his previous stops. After posting solid numbers in a part-time role in 2009, Bautista became ‘Joey Bats’ in 2010. He led the majors in home runs in both 2010 (54) and 2011 (43), finishing fourth and third in the AL MVP voting, respectively. He would go on to mash 288 home runs as a Blue Jay over 1235 games.

Besides posting ludicrous power numbers in his time in Toronto, he is remembered by most for one single moment.

Bautista’s bat flips after hitting a late-inning, go-ahead home run against the Texas Rangers in Game #5 of the 2015 ALDS will forever live in Blue Jays lore. Toronto fans had waited a long time to see playoff baseball in Ontario’s capital, with their last appearance coming in their World Series-winning season of 1993. Bautista’s shot put an exclamation point on the series and sent them off to the ALCS. Even though they would go on to lose to the Royals in six games, nobody will ever forget Bautista’s big moment, as well as his contributions over his 10 seasons in Toronto.

His contributions to the team were the stuff of legends and the organization honoured him by adding him to the Level of Excellence two years ago. He ranks high on numerous Blue Jays offensive leaderboards and has remained tied to the organization after he retired from the game.

Clapp has been a fixture in Canadian baseball for over 25 years, making his mark first as a player and more recently as a coach.

The five-foot-eight infielder only briefly played in the Major Leagues- he logged just 23 games with the Cardinals in 2001 – but anyone who follows Canada during international tournaments likely knows his name. The Windsor, Ontario native may be best remembered for his bases-loaded single in the 11th inning of the 1999 Pan-Am games that helped Canada beat the United States. He would go on to play for Canada at the 2004 Summer Olympics, as well as in the inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2006.

After retiring, Clapp has made a name for himself as a coach. He was the third base coach for the gold-medal-winning Canadian team at the Pan-Am games, while also working his way up the professional ranks in the Cardinals organization. In 2017, Baseball America named him their Minor League Manager of the Year, after he led the triple-A Memphis Redbirds to a league championship. Since the 2019 season, Clapp has been the St. Louis Cardinals’ first base coach and this past year, Baseball Canada added him to the Wall of Excellence. It may just be a matter of time before he gets a chance to manage in the big leagues.

Axford has a good chance at getting into the hall based on his long career in the majors and his participation in international tournaments. Known affectionately as the ‘Ax Man’, he spent his first six seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers before spending parts of five seasons with seven different teams. The former closer’s best season was in 2011 when he led the major leagues in saves while winning the penultimate Rolaids Relief Man of the Year Award.

Axford was born in Simcoe, Ontario, about an hour and a half drive from the home of the hall of fame in St Mary’s. The now 41-year-old was a part of two World Baseball Classic teams; first in 2013 and again in 2023. For his career, he finished with a 3.90 ERA, 144 saves and a 10.1 K/9. It was announced in January that he would be added to the Brewers Wall of Fame and his 144 saves have him ranked second amongst Canadian-born pitchers in the big leagues.