Former MLB pitcher Jack Morris signs his autograph during a 2014 game at South Bend’s Four Winds Field. (Photo by Craig Wieczorkiewicz/The Midwest League Traveler)

Nine former major-league players and one former executive are the 10 people on the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Modern Baseball Era ballot to be voted upon December 10 at the Baseball Winter Meetings. Two of them played in the Midwest League.

The former players on the ballot are Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Ted Simmons, Luis Tiant and Alan Trammell. Also on the ballot is Marvin Miller, the influential leader of the players union from 1966 to 1982.

John and Simmons played in the Midwest League.

John was an 18-year-old pitching prospect for the Cleveland Indians when he suited up for the 1961 Dubuque Packers, his first professional baseball team. He went 10-4 with a 3.17 ERA and 99 strikeouts in 88 innings (14 games/13 starts). He made one more appearance in the Midwest League, 24 years later, when he made a six-inning rehab start for the 1985 Madison Muskies.

Simmons also played in the Midwest League during his first year as a professional ballplayer. The then-St. Louis Cardinals prospect batted .269 with 4 HR and 34 RBI in 47 games with the 1967 Cedar Rapids Cardinals. The future MLB catcher played 37 games in the outfield and 12 behind the plate while in the Midwest League.