Thomson belongs in a unique class of players

Everyone baseball fan knows Bobby Thomson. He hit the 'shot heard round the world' to send the NY Giants to the 1951 World Series. But, he's not a Hall of Famer. He was a career .270 season with 264 homers. 1951 was the only season in which he hit .264 homers. Still, everyone knows him. There aren't too many players like that. Most universally known players are either Hall of Famers (ex. Babe Ruth), future Hall of Famers (ex. Derek Jeter), or would be Hall of Famers whose careers were derailed by injuries (ex. Nomar Garciaparra) or some other problem (ex. Dwight Gooden or Mark McGwire). The universally known players who aren't anywhere near Hall of Famers had one legendary moment or one legendary season. Thomson, Roger Maris, and Kirk Gibson are the only ones I can think of immediately. (If you're thinking of Bill Mazeroski, who hit a walkoff homer to win the 1960 World Series for the Pirates, he was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 2001.) Maris and Gibson only had 275 and 255 homers respectively. Still, we'll always remember them. Some players are legends their whole career, but others are legends just because of one moment or one season that will be remembered forever.