Chase Utley has to wait another year to potentially be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but his induction onto the Phillies Wall of Fame will come this summer in Philadelphia. The former Phillies second baseman received votes on 59.1 percent of the Hall of Fame ballots in the last voting, continuing a move forward in his vote total. It is possible, if not likely, that he will reach the needed 75 percent level in the next round of voting. For now, he will have to be content with being memorialized by the team that he spent most of his major league career playing second base for.

The move was announced Thursday morning in Clearwater where Utley was on hand and spoke with the media.

“As players, we don’t play the game to get recognized, to get awards. But now that we have the ability to kind of sit back and reflect on your career, it’s special,” Utley told reporters gathered for the announcement. “It will be an honor to be part of this special club with the Phillies. The Phillies are my family.”

Utley is the fourth member of the 2008 World Series champions to be honored with his inclusion onto the Wall of Fame. Manager Charlie Manuel was inducted in 2014 and Pat Burrell followed the next year in 2015. Jimmy Rollins was honored last summer and now Utley will join his teammates when the next ceremony is held on August 4th.

Three other members of that team — Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard, and Jimmy Rollins — are near locks to be inducted at some point. Hamels and Rollins have also received some consideration in the Hall of Fame voting, but are not at the level of votes received by Utley.

“One step a time, but yeah, obviously you can’t help but pay attention to it. I’m humbled and honored to even be a part of the conversations. We’ll see how that unfolds, but I’m excited to kind of see how it tracks,” said Utley, who also made an argument for Rollins to be enshrined in Cooperstown. “There’s not many people that have done it better, in my opinion. The way that he was able to control the hardest position on the field at shortstop and make it look easy. I know it gets talked about, but I don’t know how much it’s emphasized – how good of a shortstop he was.”

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