Long before Ken Griffey Jr., Wade Boggs and Ozzie Smith became baseball Hall of Famers, they highlighted another exclusive list: the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant softball ringers.

Yes, back in 1992, plant executive C. Montgomery Burns concocted a ruse to win a corporate softball championship against bitter rival Shelbyville by using major league baseball players in place of his actual employees.

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Burns, then a spry 111, successfully “hired” nine major leaguers to work at his plant to give the team an edge in order to win a bet against the owner of Shelbyville’s power plant.

Of course, most of the ringers met various obstacles that kept them off the field — Griffey's fate was particularly concerning — resulting in a surprisingly dramatic game that ended with the walkoff beaning of Springfield Nuclear bench player Homer Simpson.

But the story of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant ringers endures as a study of what might have been.

Here are the nine ringers, ranked.