The Contemporary Baseball Committee Tabs Kent While Moving Towards Burying Bonds, Clemens, and Sheffield
The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the navigation tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.
On an eight-man Hall of Fame ballot featuring three players who were linked to performance-enhancing drugs, and four others who had shortened careers that ended by age 37 due to declines accelerated by injuries, it appeared from the outset of this cycle that Jeff Kent — a former MVP who holds the record for most home runs by a second baseman — had the easiest path to a plaque. Sure enough, when the votes from the 16-member Contemporary Baseball Era Committee were counted at the Winter Meetings on Sunday in Orlando, Kent was the lone candidate elected to the Hall. He’ll be inducted on July 26, 2026 in Cooperstown alongside any candidates elected by the BBWAA.
Meanwhile, in a repudiation that echoed the one that he received from the 2023 edition of this committee, Kent’s former Giants teammate and clubhouse nemesis Barry Bonds again received fewer than five votes. So did Roger Clemens (again) and first-timer Gary Sheffield, the two other candidates connected to PEDs, as well as the late Fernando Valenzuela. Based on a new rule introduced earlier this year, all four are ineligible for consideration on the 2029 Contemporary Baseball ballot, assuming the format goes unchanged; the earliest they can next appear is the 2032 ballot, to be voted on in December 2031. If any of those candidates again slips into the fewer-than-five zone, they will be ineligible for future consideration, period — an aspect of the rule that appears ripe for abuse given the heavy hand the Hall has demonstrated when choosing its committees.
Astute readers of my coverage will note that those four candidates were the ones from this ballot whom I endorsed for election. I argued that Valenzuela, who barely made a dent in two years on the BBWAA ballot (2003–04), should be considered primarily as a modern-day pioneer for serving as a beloved global ambassador and international icon who brought generations of Mexican American and Latino fans to baseball. That’s on top of a very good — but not Hall-caliber — playing career which included six All-Star selections and four top-five finishes in the Cy Young voting, highlighted by his incredible age-20 season, in which he won the NL Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards, led the Dodgers to their first championship in 16 years, and emerged as the centerpiece of a cultural phenomenon, Fernandomania.
As for Bonds, Clemens, and Sheffield, this was an extension of the support I gave them during their tenures on the BBWAA ballot, first virtually and then once I joined the voting pool starting with the 2021 cycle. All three were among the very best of their day, with Bonds and Clemens perhaps the best position player and pitcher of all time — period. As for their connections to PEDs, I’ve long drawn a distinction between PED use that dated to the time before testing and penalties were in place, when a complete institutional failure prevented the league and the union from adopting a coherent drug policy. This isn’t a fringe view within the BBWAA electorate, either. Particularly once Bud Selig, who as commissioner presided over the game’s steroid mess, was elected to the Hall via the 2017 Today’s Game election, all three received support from a substantial majority of Hall voters, climbing to at least 63% by the end of their runs on the ballot (2022 for Bonds and Clemens, 2024 for Sheffield).
Judged by the outcome, this committee was far less forgiving on that front. The full results:
Era Committee Voting
| Player | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|
| Jeff Kent | 14 | 87.5% |
| Carlos Delgado | 9 | 56.3% |
| Don Mattingly | 6 | 37.5% |
| Dale Murphy | 6 | 37.5% |
| Barry Bonds | <5 | <31.3% |
| Roger Clemens | <5 | <31.3% |
| Gary Sheffield | <5 | <31.3% |
| Fernando Valenzuela | <5 | <31.3% |
In a career spent with the Blue Jays (1992), Mets (1992–96), Cleveland (1996), Giants (1997–2002), Astros (2003–04), and Dodgers (2005–08), Kent made five All-Star teams, won the 2000 NL MVP award, and racked up 2,461 hits, 377 home runs (of which 351 were hit as a second baseman), and a .290/.356/.500 batting line. Hitting behind Bonds as he drew a bajillion walks per season, Kent drove in 100 or more runs eight out of nine seasons from 1997–2005, the last two after he’d left San Francisco. Among players with at least 7,000 plate appearances who spent at least half their time at second base, only Rogers Hornsby (.577) has a higher slugging percentage, though part of that owed to playing in a high-offense era. Among that same group, Hornsby and eight other players had a higher OPS+ than Kent’s 123. Between his modest on-base percentages and subpar defensive metrics, Kent’s 45.6 JAWS (55.4 career WAR, 35.8 peak WAR) ranks just 22nd at the position, not only below 12 of the 20 non-Negro Leagues Hall of Famers but also current BBWAA candidates Chase Utley and Dustin Pedroia; the still-active Jose Altuve; and Lou Whitaker, who despite being eligible for inclusion on this ballot was omitted, just as he was in 2023.
Whether by traditional or advanced stats, Kent’s case — not the least bit helped by a prickly public persona, and memories of his lying about a 2002 motorcycle mishap in which he was injured — never resonated with many BBWAA voters. He didn’t reach 20% until 2020, his seventh year on the ballot, and didn’t surpass 33% until 2023, when in his 10th and final year of eligibility he rallied to 46.5%. Given that 2023 Contemporary honoree Fred McGriff followed a similar pattern, with traditional stats that stood out more than advanced ones, and a 10th-year surge to 39.8% after nine years of falling short of 24%, it wasn’t hard to see this one coming. “Still, I won’t be the least bit surprised if he’s elected, and if he’s the only one from this panel who gains entry this year,” I concluded in Kent’s candidate profile.
With Hall of Fame chairman of the board Jane Forbes Clark serving as the non-voting chairman, the 16-member committee that considered the candidates — each allowed to vote for no more than three — consisted of the following:
- Hall of Famers Fergie Jenkins, Jim Kaat, Juan Marichal, Tony Pérez, Ozzie Smith, Alan Trammell, and Robin Yount
- Major league executives Mark Attanasio, Doug Melvin, Arte Moreno, Kim Ng, Tony Reagins and Terry Ryan
- Media members/historians Steve Hirdt, Tyler Kepner, and Jayson Stark
The Hall’s choices for this panel managed to sidestep the ongoing concerns regarding cronyism — a well-documented problem in committee elections not only in recent elections but those that date back more than half a century — that emerge when multiple voters are prominently connected to certain candidates. Yount did play with Sheffield at the outset of the latter’s career in Milwaukee, Pérez was a special assistant to the general manager during Sheffield’s years with the Marlins, and Kaat served as a broadcaster for the Yankees while Mattingly played, but the group wasn’t as saturated with connections in the manner of the 2023 Contemporary ballot, from which McGriff was elected by a panel that included two former teammates (Greg Maddux and Kenny Williams, with Chipper Jones scratched due to illness) and former Blue Jays executive Paul Beeston. Not to belabor the point, but the 2019 Today’s Game election of Harold Baines, as well as Lee Smith and the 2025 Contemporary Baseball election of Dave Parker, were similarly colored by a multitude of committee connections.
The committee skewed older, at least in terms of the Hall of Famers, with none having played into the 21st century. Smith and Trammell last played in 1996, with Yount (1993), Pérez (1986), Jenkins and Kaat (1983), and Marichal (1975) having hung up their spikes even earlier. Conventional wisdom suggested those players might favor the older candidates, against whom they were more likely to have competed under similar playing conditions — before the game’s big home run surge and the proliferation of PEDs — or otherwise crossed paths. But for Murphy (who played from 1976–93) and Mattingly (1982–95), the 19th time proved not to be the charm. While both were MVP-winning superstars at their peaks, they turned into ordinary players in their 30s due to injuries, with Mattingly bowing out after his age-34 season and Murphy after his age-37 season. Both fell short of major milestones and got little attention during 15-year runs on the BBWAA ballot, with Murphy topping 20% only in his second year (23.2% in 2000) and Mattingly debuting at 28.2% in 2001 but sinking below 20% for good by 2003, and into single digits by the end of his run. Both finished below the reporting threshold on the 2018 and 2020 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballots before showing signs of life on the 2023 one, with Mattingly receiving eight votes (50%) and Murphy six (37.5%). Based on the endless recycling of their candidacies, the Hall appears desperate for voters to elect these two wholesome icons despite their statistical shortcomings. Don’t be surprised when they reappear on the 2029 ballot, crowding out candidates overdue for a second look.
As for the notion that those older voters would take hard-line approaches with regards to PED-linked candidates, only Smith seemed to fit that bill in the manner of 2023 Contemporary members Jack Morris, Ryne Sandberg, and Frank Thomas, who were considered among the most outspoken on the subject. As The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly noted, Smith said in a 2010 interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “From my perspective, if a guy tested positive or admitted using, he automatically eliminated himself from being part of the Hall of Fame.” None of the three players in question did test positive, and when Sheffield told the BALCO grand jury that he briefly used the testosterone-based steroid known as “the cream” while training with Bonds, he said he was not told it contained an illegal steroid.
Baggarly additionally pointed to statements by Marichal, Kaat, and Yount in which they all publicly offered nuanced views when it came to PEDs, at least as they pertained to the period before testing was in place:
“I think that they have been unfair to guys who were never found guilty of anything,” Marichal told The Associated Press in 2013 while explaining why he believes Bonds, Clemens and Sammy Sosa belong in the Hall of Fame…
“The players have been tagged as the most culpable, and I would suggest that they are not culpable at all,” Kaat wrote in a column published in 2008. Kaat also said this to the New York Post in 2009: “Heck, there weren’t any rules in our day. We were trying to get the edge. Who’s to say we wouldn’t have done the same thing?”
Yount told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2010 that he empathized with players who felt they had to use steroids to keep up with the competition… “There’s a side of me that doesn’t really hold it against those guys when there was no testing.
“But I’ll tell you, I’d be the first one to jump all over somebody who was caught doing it now that testing is in place and they’re out there breaking records.”
Stark voted for Bonds and Clemens every year they were on the ballot, while Kepner, who per company policy was prohibited from voting during his run at the New York Times, understood the PED usage in the context of a complete institutional failure: “But players could have pushed for testing in the 1990s; management could have aggressively confronted the issue; reporters could have raised more suspicions. We all failed, and now we must decide what the mutated records really mean,” he wrote in 2012.
Views such as those at least suggested the PED-linked candidates wouldn’t again be so buried, but they were. As for Valenzuela, weighing his combination of contributions as a player, broadcaster, and global ambassador against the more familiar collections of accolades and milestones of the other candidates was always going to be a tall task. The election of Buck O’Neil on the 2022 Early Baseball ballot was facilitated by half a panel’s worth of historians and experts who recognized him for the breadth of his work as a pioneer in a career that extended beyond playing and managing in the Negro Leagues to include scouting and coaching in the integrated majors, co-founding the Negro Leagues Museum, and serving as a beloved ambassador for the game. Beyond that, it must be repeated that no election takes place in a vacuum; each candidate isn’t just being judged on his own merits but competing for precious ballot space. Even very good candidates can be left with the short straw.
One of the most surprising results was the strong showing of Delgado, the rare candidate to gain placement on an Era Committee ballot after going one-and-done on a BBWAA one. A socially conscious athlete who dared to speak out on issues as weighty as the Iraq War and the United States Navy’s use of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as a bomb-testing site, Delgado clubbed 473 homers in his career but never led his league, and made just two All-Star teams. As with McGriff, the notion that some of the sluggers who overshadowed him were chemically enhanced must have resonated with a sizable portion of the electorate.
Even with five of this ballot’s eight candidates ruled out for 2029, the 11-member BBWAA Historical Overview Committee that creates the next slate faces a challenge, as the list of intriguing candidates is only growing. Setting aside the PED-linked Manny Ramirez, who with two positive tests isn’t going to leapfrog Bonds et al. into Cooperstown, candidates who could fill those vacancies in 2029 include Whitaker and Dwight Evans, both frozen out after solid showings on the 2020 Modern Baseball ballot, plus Jim Edmonds, Keith Hernandez, Kenny Lofton, Johan Santana, and Omar Vizquel, none of whom has appeared on an Era Committee ballot before.
With its reputation for cronyism and for choosing candidates who don’t measure up to their BBWAA-elected brethren, the Era Committees, like the Veterans Committees before them, have often invited criticism and even cynicism. Perhaps the joke is on any of us who looked at this slate and dared to imagine that this time it could be different, that voters could break free of past patterns by finding nuance within the Steroid Era, or even break new ground by recognizing a modern-day pioneer. In the end, the only consensus reached was on the ballot’s safest pick. Welcome to the byzantine world of Cooperstown, Jeff Kent.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
So quick math:
16 members times 3 (max) votes = 48 possible votes
14+9+6+6 = 35 known votes
So there’s 13 votes that were given to some combination of Bonds, Clemens, Sheffield, Valenzuela (none of whom got more than four) or no one.
That also means none of them got shut out. Even if three of them got four votes there’s still one left over.
Not necessarily. Voters don’t have to use all 3 of their votes.
Whoops. Yes, that is true.
That only assumes all votes were used (not a guarantee)
Jeff Kent was always a borderline candidate so this falls under the category of “could be worse” for me.
But it’s kind of disappointing to me that Fernando Valenzuela got knocked off, especially with the composition of the committee. Valenzuela was almost certainly the best starter in MLB from 1981-1986 so it’s not like Yount, Trammell, Kaat, Perez, Jenkins, or (especially) Ozzie Smith could have missed Fernandomania.
Maybe the pitchers on the committee were annoyed that he got hurt and wasn’t the same afterward? Or even jealous that he got so much attention? I don’t think there’s any question that Fergie Jenkins was better at his peak than Fernando was, and probably so was Marichal, but IMO it’s not clear to me that Kaat is a more deserving Hall of Famer than Fernando Valuenzela is.
Kaat benefits from post playing contributions so I prefer him to Fernando, but I’d either vote for Fernando than Kent
Fernando spent ~20 years as a Spanish-language broadcaster for the Dodgers so it’s not like he lacks post-playing contributions
Yes he’s eminently qualified also.
Kent is OK. Borderline. I suppose the fans who loved Kent will be happy about this the way I will be if someday an Era Committee decides to vote in Andrew McCutchen, and I’m happy for both of them.
But it is a screaming farce that Kent is in while the HoF maneuvers to screw over his teammate who was better than him in every conceivable dimension, and who had had a HoF-worthy career before they ever became teammates. Especially after they changed the voting rules in the middle of his candidacy to curtail the part of the process that TPTB couldn’t control. All after inducting Bud Selig, whose only contribution to baseball was to collaborate in the scandal for which these players serve as fall guys.
Nothing new there, but I just hope that Bonds (and Clemens, I guess) lives to see a new Hall leadership that will finally acknowledge him.
Are there fans who loved Kent? He was by all accounts a world class sourpuss.
He is a great reason to have the era committees. He was unfriendly with the media, which colored his public persona. As a borderline candidate, its easy to see how he did not have many champions among the writers. The era committee, with its mix of players, execs, and writers, will have a less biased view of his candidacy.
I’m glad he was elected because I think he deserves to be in the HOF.
hence the “I’m happy for both of them” snark
I attended a breakfast meeting with Kent as featured speaker. There were maybe 30 attendees in a room for 50. Nobody else could be seated, because Kent’s head was so big! A complete 100 EGO- MANIAC. He is a complete ass … hope he tries to rides his cycle on the way to Cooperstown.
And who likely benefitted in a real way from batting adjacent to Bonds. I don’t know how one would quantify that, and from what I remember, the batting-adjacent effect usually isn’t much, but this is Bonds we’re talking about.
Except it’s supposed to be the guy batting in front of the superstar who gets the benefit or the superstar himself who benefits from good protection behind him. The only thing batting directly behind Bonds did for Kent was increase his RBI totals.
Disagree strongly. Batting with a man on 1B every time up forces pitchers to pitch to you. It’s actually the strongest lineup effect, to me.
I agree about pitchers being forced to pitch to you, and that’s why I chose to call it “batter-adjacency”. I keep imagining pitchers being like, “OK, so, I need to challenge Kent, because if I walk him, walking Bonds is more problematic. I’d obviously much rather take my chances with Kent than Bonds.”
I wonder how many times Kent doubled and then Bonds was walked? I think you’d have to look at game logs and compile trends.
Kent was usually hitting after Bonds, not before, so probably not many.
I don’t think they were forced to pitch to Kent at all, because the lineup was so weak behind him. This was a time when opposing managers were more willing to pitch around hitters, and there was definitely a feeling of “just get through Bonds and Kent” against that lineup for years.
However, getting to face pitchers from the stretch has a real, measureable effect. And not just from the absurd OBP, but Bonds was still a high percentage, double digit base stealer until the early aughts. So there was no doubt a benefit from facing a guy pitching from the stretch who actually had to pitch from the stretch, and couldn’t cheat with a windup-y stretch delivery, and some extra fastballs he saw because Bonds was always on 1B and was actually a threat to steal if you didn’t pay attention to him..
That just means they won’t intentionally walk you, which isn’t gong to happen very often to the guy providing protection to the superstar, anyway. Otherwise, it’s not going affect the pitch selection in any meaningful way.
The only person who screwed over Barry Bonds was Barry Bonds. He chose to cheat out of jealousy due to the attention that Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire were receiving. Bonds decided to take Deca-Durabolin and Winstrol of his own free will. Still not satisfied, Bonds then went to BALCO for tetrahydrogestrinone and made a complete mockery of the game. Because of his involvement with BALCO, the federal investigation of that company produced more evidence of what Bonds took and when than we have for any other baseball player.
Barry Bonds has absolutely no one to blame but himself. He chose to cheat and he has to live with the consequences.
It’s hard to cheat when they ain’t no actually-enforced rule against it.
There was in the federal law book. Bonds just got lucky he managed to deadlock the jury. If you’re breaking the law to gain an advantage in baseball, I count that as cheating.
Just pretend he’s on a corporate board and wears a suit to work everyday. That’s a much easier pill to swallow, right? Think of it as business decision done for the betterment of the company and minus the shockwaves real corporate decisions deliver to society. I’d imagine any ‘Merican can see that logic, nothing makes more sense and is more sacred more honored more Valued than good bidnessing
He cheated. He knew it. This is not a court of law, this is about his character and the man cheated. For a lot of us, this is a veto.
The use of anabolic steroids had been banned in baseball since 1991. There was no testing program because the MLBPA steadfastly refused to accept one until their own largely clean membership demanded that they do so.
Fay Vincent himself had a slightly more nuanced take (unfortunately, from his perspective) on his own actions…
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2013/5/31/4373908/fay-vincent-interview
It’s clear that the MLBPA was perfectly fine with the steroid era up to its end; but keep in mind once Fay was forced out as Commissioner, that Bud Selig had over a decade to work toward an actual steroid policy/ban + the road map on how to make it happen (or if noting else, use the issue to embarass the MLBPA/drive a wedge in their membership (assuming all the ‘largely clean’ 80’s-90’s players who now complain about steroids actually gave a you-know-what back then).
Both sides were fine with steroids (with an assist from the media keeping Omerta) until Congress and Federal Investigators embarrassed them.
Selig became commissioner in 1998 and steroids testing began five years later in 2003. It is also documented that MLB tried to get steroids testing during the 1994 labor negotiations.
That was only when he officially inherited the position. He was Acting Commissioner since 1992.
“It is also documented that MLB tried to get steroids testing during the 1994 labor negotiations.”
I find it striking that so many of Bonds’s contemporaries really stood in awe of him, including HOFers who consensus regards as “clean.” I’m not saying his peers liked Bonds. But they thought he was a baseball god, and from what I can tell still do.
And I really don’t think his peers thought of him as a cheater–not the way that the 2017 Astros are universally understood as cheaters. No one talks about games or series that were tainted by PEDs. In fact, ballplayers of Bonds’s era, with very few exceptions, are pretty blasé about PEDs, and as a group demonstrated over many years that they had no interest getting PEDs out of the sport.
By contrast, I, like many fans, lost my mind when Bonds started approaching 755. I’ve come to a different understanding since then.
I think it’s pretty clear that the distinction we make between dirty players and clean players of that time is a distinction that we who are not professional ballplayers have concocted. I think it’s pretty clear that PEDs were so pervasive in the game that very few players thought that their use was cheating. (Technically breaking the rules and the law, but not cheating.) And I think that my real problem with Bonds et al was not that they were cheating other players by acquiring an unfair advantage, but rather that they were cheating baseball history, destroying the meaning of records I cared a lot about.
But if Bonds were to get into the Hall (and I think he should) it wouldn’t be because he hit more than 755 homers, it would be because he was the greatest player of his time, as everyone he competed with would readily acknowledge.
That’s because Barry Bonds was already a first ballot Hall of Famer before he started cheating. I can understand why a fringe player who was worried about losing their job would take that risk. Bonds doing it strictly because his ego couldn’t handle someone he viewed as inferior getting more media and fan attention is just sad.
The exact opposite of this is true, as the clean players are the ones who kept pressuring the union to finally accept steroids testing. They were tired of being lumped in with cheaters like Bonds. Frank Thomas, Ken Griffey Jr., and many others spoke publicly on the subject. You can find stories with their comments from that time.
Technically, that was just informing the players that steroids were against federal law in the United States (with Canada soon to follow). Still, that’s as good as making them illegal in the game’s North American leagues themselves as far as I’m concerned.
Oh yah this too
If it were as clear cut as that, the HoF wouldn’t have had to change its procedures multiple times in order to keep him out.
You can decide to start a museum that displays a modicum of integrity, that excludes Bud Selig, that chooses some method of induction and sticks to that method, that explicitly excludes steroid users if you like. I will respect that integrity. I don’t have to respect the Hall of Fame for its selective outrage and blatant rigging of its procedures. Especially not after the milquetoast statement they issued about Pete Rose.
Exactly. The HOF has *chosen* to make a mockery of itself.
Putting Selig in and keeping Bonds and Clemens out is like enforcing the ban on Shoeless Joe and inducting Arnold Rothstein. Except that we don’t know for sure that Rothstein was in charge.
None of the procedure changes have kept Bonds or the other PED candidates out. Bonds could’ve had the previous full 15 years on the ballot and still not been elected by the BBWAA. The purging of the voter rolls only helped him and the other candidates. The various reorganizations of the Veterans/Era Committees haven’t changed the fact that most of the committee members on multiple ballots refuse to vote for him and the others.
Exactly. The fact of it is that as things stand, enough people in baseball view what Bonds and Clemens did as cheating, and thus they should be excluded from the HOF. I happen to agree that the two should not be in the HOF, but whatever you think, it’s pretty clear that this is where things stand for now and likely for at least several more years.
The two men will live. They will get to keep the gobs of extra money that they made while they were cheating.
Let me get this straight… you are upset that a selection process that contains two entirely separate groups of individuals that is changing year to year in its composition and over a period of several decades to establish and maintain a single consistent standard including rendering judgement on one of the most divisive issues in baseball history?
C’mon, man, that is an impossible ask.
Barry Bonds was on the ballot for ten years and didn’t get in. It is as clear cut as that.
This isn’t a character issue. You and the other steroids apologists need to stop equating use of performance enhancing drugs with being unlikeable or unsavory. Gambling and PEDs have extremely harsh penalties precisely because they undermine public trust in the sport. If fans don’t believe that the athletic competition is legitimate, then MLB becomes WWE.
Steroids don’t make MLB the WWE at all. If anything it makes it more like the NFL (where tons of players destroy their bodies and lives playing the game, many of whom never see the success that might “justify” that risk and sacrifice).
Still totally fine to say steroid users shouldn’t be in the hall. But it’s absolutely not in the same tier as gambling where that position is essential for the survival of the sport.
Yes, it does. The premise of baseball is a legitimate test of skills between two teams of players. One side having a player juiced to the gills makes that competition fundamentally illegitimate.
It’s wild to me that everyone agrees that the Astros cheating was deplorable, yet so many people in these comments sections excuse performance enhancement.
Fair enough. The only problem is that there are already known cheaters like Gaylord Perry in the Hall of Fame, not to mention the likely possibility that a PED user who never got caught has already been elected.
Along with other kinds of selective enforcement, I think the character clause is a joke. As such, I wouldn’t mind letting them all in if their playing careers deserve it (save for those on the lifelong ineligible list).
However, in the absence of this solution, I just ask that they be consistent in not letting in Bonds or Clemens if the others still can’t get in.
No doubt. I think it’s safe to say most of the below 5 (if not all) used PED’s:
Bagwell
Biggio
Ortiz
Pudge Rodriguez
Piazza
Lots of circumstantial evidence, coincidences, weird statistical leaps, teammates that were known users, etc.
Add in spitballers, amphetamine users, sign stealers, etc. & it’s not like the HOF is full of righteousness. The HOF is not like being canonized by the Catholic Church. It’s a museum about baseball.
The character clause should only be used for the most egregious cases, IMO.
That’s the part that bothers me – it’s not that people want to keep steroid users out, that’s fine – but buddy you better be willing to vote “no” on a whooooole host of other rule and lawbreakers to keep an internal consistency. Don’t be a selective enforcer or decide why this particular rule/law is worthy of enforcement while letting a whole host of other transgressions slide.
I don’t think people realize just how massive the effects of anabolic steroids are on players. The OPS increases for Bonds (28.8%), McGwire (31.7%), and Sosa (27.2%) suggest that they enhance offensive performance by around 30%.
Which, of course, is why so many pitchers used them?
All your favorite players cheated (more “cheated”. These guys are playing 162 games+ a year to entertain the absolute worst, most sycophantic population – one that lives off the suffering of others and with verve and fervor – in the history of history.
This ‘Merican sanctimony over professional athletes juicing is genuinely funny when you consider what a standard issue will accept. This is society built on endless genocide, endless exploitation, endless lies, delusions of supremacy, fake religiosity, idol worship of money and “power”…I say just pretend these athletes are your favorite men of bidness, corporate champions or w/e
Hey now, tacitly endorsing steroids wasn’t Bud Selig’s only contribution to baseball. He also helped orchestrate collusion!
That happened under a previous commish back in the 1980s. I mean, unless you think the Brewers were going to sign high price FAs in 1988.
I highly recommend the book Lords of the Realm by John Helyar if you want to learn more. Selig’s role in collusion under Ueberroth was not passive.
Selig has a very mixed record and someone who I agree is underserving of his Hall of Fame plaque, but don’t sell his contributions short. For one thing, he eventually did institute tough drug testing.
He also presided over the longest period of labor peace to date since the creation of the MLBPA (after the worst labor stoppage to date), started strong franchises in Denver and Phoenix (and a couple weak ones in Florida), expanded the playoffs, started interleague play, instituted instant replay challenges, and made improvements to player safety.
He presided over the longest period of labor peace since the creation of the MLBPA…after an owners lockout that led to the cancellation of the World Series, which to me is the biggest baseball tragedy of his leadership. I acknowledge some things I liked about Selig-era baseball, but I can’t discuss them as in any way balancing out his record.
Technically a player’s strike rather than an owner’s lockout, but yes, a very mixed record.
Still, a mixed record is better than a terrible one.
He only instituted drug testing after it became clear that drugs were being abused under his watch. Don’t pretend that didn’t happen; some of us are old enough to remember it.
Indeed, and following pressure from Congress, hearings, talk of revoking baseball’s antitrust exemption, etc.
Selig tried to get steroids testing years earlier. It was the MLBPA who repeatedly blocked it.
According to Selig in his self serving POS autobiography, you mean?
No, it has been confirmed by numerous sources that the league asked for steroids testing as part of the 1994 labor negotiations. The MLBPA steadfastly refused to even consider it.
Yes. They refused to pee in a cup and be the sole focus of public scorn.
The owners knew what was happening but wouldn’t accept any responsibility for the WIN AT ALL COSTS mentality, and fans wouldn’t accept their responsibility either.
Selig organized the smaller revenue franchises and was able to get some level of revenue sharing. It has helped the parity of the game in the years since. Teams generally have shorter playoff draughts in MLB compared to other US sports.
Not really, but only because it’s harder to make the playoffs in MLB in the first place.
“Fans who loved Kent”? Are there any? I have yet to read one comment anywhere that “my guy finally made it”
Ive seen zero interest in what cap he will wear.
Have the SFG even retired his number, put him in the team Hall or sent out a congratutory text?
Best in the MLB from ’81-’86 … even with a bad (bad) year in ’86, I still think this would be Stieb. Poor, overlooked Stieb.
The new rules really are ridiculous. Let’s draft up a ballot of those names you suggested:
Keith Hernandez
Jim Edmonds
Johan Santana
Dwight Evans
Lou Whitaker
Kenny Lofton
and then for the last two let’s add two underappreciated 80s pitchers in:
Bret Saberhagen
Dave Stieb
At least two and as many as five of those names are going to be put on “probation,” and if another ballot of similar names reappears later, at least two of those names will be permanently excised. And to my mind, all eight of these names are deserving Hall of Famers. It’s just completely asinine, cutting off your nose to spite your face sort of thinking from the Hall. Why they wouldn’t just internally decide to not select Bonds and Clemens for every available panel, I have no idea.
Anyway, Kent isn’t a bad outcome. Good for him.
B & C are martyrs, examples to be made of, pirate corpses swinging in the breeze.
Well, Bonds did spend the first part of his career with Pittsburgh…
I’d vote for all of those enthusiastically and add David Cone. I’m not exactly sure what Kevin Brown did to offend people.
steroids. Also, a raging jerk.
Lofton is one of the most absurd complete misses of the HOF that I can think of. Didn’t he get like basically no votes?
He and Edmonds debuted on insanely heavy ballots. The 10 vote rule is extremely dumb
Lofton did debut on a stacked ballot. Yet somehow Sandy Alomar got 16 votes. Julio Franco 6. Steve Finley 4. Shawn Green 2. And Aaron Sele 1.
That’s 29 votes that were wasted on completely undeserving candidates. Meanwhile, Lofton only needed 11 of those votes to stay on the ballot.
I could squint & see a non-sabrmetric vote for Finley (old school stats voter, sees 2500 hits, 300 HR) & someone placing a vote for Franco for his amazing long career. or being wowed by Shawn Green’s 5-6 year peak. I wouldn’t do it, but, I can see how someone would with some semblance of “logic”.
I can’t imagine voting for Sandy Alomar over Lofton. They were teammates, for Godsakes, & no one thought Alomar was better than Lofton.
Aaron Sele is a mystery. Maybe his mom had a vote?
Honest question: when did WAR become mainstreamed enough to put Lofton in the HOF discussion? My sense is that the more composite cases for the hall (based on the combo of offense + defense + sometimes baserunning) only became a thing with the stathead campaigns for Walker and Rolen and Abreu, and really only several years after Lofton’s appearance on the ballot. I think it’s only relatively recently that Lofton began to be talked about as one of the greatest CFers of all time. Similar story with Whitaker. He’s an obvious HOFer now.
It was right around that time, early 2010’s when we started to see it get main stream attention. Remember the Cabrera/Trout MVP stuff. That was 2012-13…and Cabrera won those MVP’s
Of course, HOF voters were an older group, newspaper writers that had covered baseballfor 10+ years,, not, internet writers..and this was before they purged the old, retired voters.
I do agree these all around candidates are a more recent phenomenon.
Yet Ozzie Smith made it on his first ballot in 2001 as a clear glove-first composite case.
No, Ozzie is definitely not what I meant by a composite candidate. He was an average-to-below-average hitter. He wasn’t just glove-first, he was elected because you didn’t need advanced metrics to call him one of the greatest gloves of all time, if not the greatest, and his bat wasn’t Belanger bad. I meant the kind of candidate whose complete value WAR helps clarify for voters, players who were really-good-to-excellent at lots of things without being supernova in one thing. Another commenter called it “all-around.” Voters didn’t elect many of those when Lofton appeared on the ballot, and they still don’t.
The first new rule would be great and should help these guys appear on more ballots in the first place, if it weren’t for the terrible second new rule.
In 15 years after the cut out a bunch of worthy players, they can get down to work electing the leftovers. to make the hall even weaker then it already is. Idiots.!
You are obviously a big-hall guy and bully for you, but in my book, while they were all excellent players, the only one who unambiguously belongs is Whitaker.
Was going to write a long reply about VC logistics, but saw that you say further down that you feel they should probably be abolished. Fair enough, honestly (though I really think Lofton should be next to Whitaker in terms of ‘really REALLY should be in).
You might have a case with Lofton. But I suspect we have the eternal big hall/small hall disagreement on who should be in, ehh?
He’s a bit worse than Kirby Puckett and a bit better than Fred Mcgriff and Nomar Garciaparra so in the “I don’t care whatever” category, but I’d rather keep the ballot blank than vote for him if I boycott Clemens, Sheffield and Bonds, and I didn’t think Valenzuela was a good enough player
Jeff Kent probably shouldn’t be a Hall of Famer, but all the other guys probably shouldn’t be a Hall of Famer more, so this is fine
That’s the problem with the veterans committees… at BEST they elect marginally qualified players. If it were up to me, I would let Lou Whitaker in and abolish them forever, or at least to maybe once every decade.
Even if I agreed with you about their worthiness, this is a terrible way to approach HOF voting
I mean the 30 year old journeyman who suddenly became a top power hitter (in San Francisco) in 1997, then saw his power return to normal in 2006, OBVIOUSLY never used the stuff!
He was nearly as loud about it as Rafael Palmeiro!
Thank goodness these custodians of the game picked him to join Bud Selig in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown, rather than the two greatest players to ever live.
I mean, obviously, there’s no direct evidence Kent used steroids. But the fact that his offensive numbers jumped at age 30, the second he started playing with Barry Bonds should be filed under “CURIOUS”.
I’ve seen some people claim his improvement was because he benefited from Bonds being on base so much. But his career numbers are the same with bases empty and runners on base. So that theory doesn’t hold up.
Anyway, if he did use, he won’t be the first or the last steroid user elected to the Hall. What can you do???
Kent and Bonds didn’t get along, so is the suggestion that Kent saw Bonds doing it and decided to seek it out?
It also coincides with the HR explosion. 1998 was the first year there were ever over 5,000 HR hit. 1999 set another new record. 2000 set another new record. The highest 3-year peak in history is 1999-2001 with ~5,559 HR/year, total of 16,679 HR.
Kent hit 29 HR in 1998. He was 29, and had 651 PA. He had never had 600 PA before. He only passed 500 PA twice. Both times he did, he also topped 20 HR.
He homered once every ~26 ABs those years. He went from that, to homering once every ~23 ABs, the same year home runs exploded across baseball and set an all time record.
Is it maybe more likely that he was a benefactor of the home run derby and a live ball like everyone else, who also set a career high in PA by over 100, during a players peak power years, and not a steroid routine with his clubhouse rival?
That was a career high in ISO by 32 points.
He then added another 37 points at age 30.
That said, I’m sure he did so independently to Bonds – probably just a normal 90s routine of taking a fistful of andro before and after each workout and a fistful of greenies before each game.
Shouldn’t they be less than signs in the table?
Just to add some clarity, the symbols next to the 5s in the voting table for Bonds, Clemens, Sheffield, and Valenzuela should be “less than (<)” rather than greater than.
The next Contemporary Era Player’s Ballot will remain contentious and overstuffed with good candidates worthy of consideration. I am cautiously optimistic some new blood will enter the panel because Carlos Delgado got 9 votes but I am worried that the Era Committees will follow a similar pattern of focusing on the recently fallen off BBWAA candidates, and selecting players based on traditional stats. I am less concerned about cronyism and more concerned about spite against modern stats. 2029 is likely the last, best, chance for guys like Edmonds, Lofton, Evans and Whitaker to get a hearing since (I suspect) Bobby Abreu, Torii Hunter and Andy Pettitte will soon start clogging up the Era Committees again (and Manny Ramirez, and Alex Rodriguez, will get slots IMO).
I wonder if the voting was somewhat strategic. Perhaps during the committee’s discussions it became clear that there were too many ‘no’ votes for Bonds, Clemens, and Sheff, so some members switched their votes to other candidates.
What an F’n joke. Bonds and Clemens should be in.
Well putting in the likes of Kent and Mcgriff makes it unclear what being a Hof player actually means.
It’s not all time greats. It’s not lifetime achievement.
So what is it?
I always think of the Bill James line: The Baseball Hall of Fame is a self-defining institution that refuses to define itself.
It kinda does define itself every time it votes. I mean realistically, how else COULD you define it? Have some sort of checklist or something?
Nothing against Jeff Kent, it is crazy that he is in the HOF before Bonds though.
If I were a less trusting person, I would say it was an intentional insult, but I highly doubt that.
You don’t think so?
Oh, I think Kents placement with Bonds was deliberate – not sure about result
It would be crazy if it were not for that entire PEDS thing with Bonds. I mean, you may dismiss it, but yours is not the only opinion.
The three biggest differences between Jeff Bagwell and Barry Bonds are that Bonds was a no-doubt HoF player before he started using, that Bagwell got caught red handed with Andro, and…well…
Barry Bonds played for 2 teams over 22 seasons and Jeff Kent is his only HOF teammate.
That is really rare. If any player plays that long, you are probably going to run into a few other HOFers. If you play for several teams, you will probably have more HOF teammates as you are getting traded a lot, and usually traded to good teams. In 1994 alone, Alex Rodriguez was teammates with Edgar Martinez, Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, and Rich Gossage, and he went on to have several more HOF teammates.
Tony Gwynn played 20 years for one team and had: Rich Gossage, Roberto Alomar, Fred McGriff, Rickey Henderson, and Trevor Hoffman.
Craig Biggio played 20 years for one team and had: Nolan Ryan, Jeff Bagwell, Randy Johnson, Billy Wagner, and probably Carlos Beltran.
I was thinking that the way to do it would be to play for a long time for a single bad team, but even Mike Trout will have Shohei and Pujols (not to mention himself). And the Bonds-era Pirates and Giants were good teams.
Evan Longoria might go 16 years with only one HoF teammate (Buster Posey), unless Corbin Carroll makes it which seems not unlikely.
Salvy was called up right after Greinke was gone with the Royals in 2011.Don’t think he will have played with any surefire HOFers although Witt is looking like he is trending that way. Tbf Perez almost certainly not gonna last 20 years and there are probably a ton more 15 year vets than 20 year ones so might be more examples. But that is the immediate current player that came to my head
Salvy played with Greinke in 2022-23.
Completely forgot about this…shame on this royals fan
He has some interesting teammates that could change that in some kind of committee vote. I’m thinking Miguel Tejada mainly, but there are other names that could possibly get some support not on the statistical merit necessarily, but in a future consideration like a players committe.. Johnny Cueto, Lorenzo Cain, Raul Ibanez, James Shields, Joakim Soria, etc.
Or maybe just Tejada, he played with lots of good players, but no great ones.
Interestingly, the C for the Royals during Greinke’s last year was Jasaon Kendall. He’s a 15 year vet that I don’t think had any HOF teammates..
Tejada has the PED taint, too. He had a 105 game suspension in 2013. He also pled guilty to lying to Congress during the 2005 steroid trials.
He has 0% chance of getting in.
In that case, how many Hall of Fame teammates did Ernie Banks have (not counting himself)?
Billy Williams. Fergie Jenkins. Ron Santo.
Ralph Kiner, Monte Irvin.
Santo, Williams, Jenkins – all Banks’ teammates for a long time. Briefly Monte Irvin, Ralph Kiner, Lou Brock, Richie Asburne, Robin Roberts and Hoyt Wilhelm.
I know you’re asking about Cubs teammates, but for trivia purposes also Durocher (manager) and Buck O’Neil, (Monarchs, and I think he was an official coach for the Cubs, I think while Banks was still playing).
All that is by memory … Veeck-as-in-Beck is to Cubs history as sadtrombone is to 1980s stolen bases, ha ha.
I think we’ve got a great flavor of questions there for the mailbag:
* What is the longest someone has played in the majors without having a Hall of Fame teammate? Sounds like it was Bonds, but with Kent crossing him off I don’t know who is next.
* What is the longest a single franchise has gone without employing a future Hall of Famer on the roster? (My initial guess was Senators/Rangers – but Minnie Minoso-1963 to Fergie Jenkins-1974 doesn’t seem terribly long.)
* Who has played for the most teams without ever having a HoF’er as a teammate?
Maybe someone can answer those with a bit of googling / research.
It looks like Bonds had the record for most seasons played without a HOF teammate. He might still have it. I thought I could figure out this answer, because there can’t be THAAAAAAAAAAT many players with 21-22 seasons played, but there really are, and I do not want to go through them all.
“Longest a team has gone without a HOFer” is easier to figure out with baseball reference’s HOF register for each team.
If Barry Bonds had remained in Pittsburgh until 2007, he still wouldn’t have had a HOF teammate. So, Pittsburgh hasn’t had a HOF player since the 1980s at the latest. Has there been anyone who played at least 1 game for the Pirates since 2008 who is likely to make the HOF?
I am a Padres fan, and we have perhaps the sorriest history in the majors. Perhaps Seattle and Milwaukee have sorrier histories. But SD had a HOF player every season from 1973-2008.
1973-80: Winfield, others
1981: Ozzie Smith
1982-2001: Gwynn, others
2002-2008: Hoffman, others.
Would it be possible to consider Jim Leyland?
I would love to see these as mailbag submissions. The current iteration of the Pirates have probably gone a long while without a HOFer; I imagine McCutchen will fall short of election, we’ll see how Skenes does.
I think Cole has a chance depending on how voters think about starting pitching in this era and how he finishes his career.
That’s fair. Really interested to see how they approach starters after the obvious choices (Verlander, Kershaw, Scherzer) get in.
Cutch is going to be an easy Committee guy, though
Are we counting Hall of Fame Managers?
Yeah, he had 2 of those- Leyland & Dusty Baker will get in as soon as he’s eligible.
We shouldn’t – a manager is not a teammate playing the game.
I will say, the exclusion of Bonds, Clemens, Sheffield, Sosa, etc from the Hall of Fame is making me care less about it as an institution. One of the things that excites me about visiting Cooperstown is sharing with my kids the memories I have of players I saw play when I was young and who exhibited greatness. There are plenty of pitchers I could wax poetic about who are in the hall, so Clemens’s absence isn’t as noticeable. But there’s gaping holes on the position player side.
Kent hit more home runs than any other second baseman. He didn’t juice, but he certainly hit a juiced ball with an extra bouncy core. He was no Alomar, Sandberg, or Biggio. If I walk by his plaque with my kids, my story of Kent is “he was kind of a jerk who could hit pretty well+, in an era when everyone could hit pretty well.” McGriff at least has a cool nickname and had his peak in a lower offense era.
Well you’ll be happy to know that Bonds and Clemens are in the hall of fame museum all over the place. They just don’t have plaques in one section honoring them.
I found this striking when I visited. The plaques that we spend all the time arguing about are the least interesting part. The baseball history timeline thing that they do includes (IIRC) Bonds and Clemens and is more noticeable than the plaques at the end.
I mean, it’s literally called the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, which makes the distinction rather obvious. In a way it does the museum part a disservice that it’s attached to the putative pantheon of plaques.
You know who’s not all over the museum? Jeff Kent, because he wasn’t a great player.
…that we know of. Not accusing him of using at all, but I would be careful putting blanket statements of innocence or guilt on anyone that played in that era (excepting of course those who have admitted using or failed drug tests, I’m comfortable saying they used). We just don’t know who was using but it was very widespread in the 90s – early 00s.
Define “very”. In the last 25 years we’ve had almost no post-playing day exposes. The names that first came out are still the only names we know and they seem to be concentrated in hubs around Houston, Canseco, radomski, Balco, biogensis, mcnamee and a few others
Have you ever looked into bridge ownership?
Valenzuela was only a pioneer by being a very good player from the right country at the right time. He didn’t do anything specifically noteworthy to grow the game of baseball in Latin America. It would be like electing Hideo Nomo just because he was a good player who happened to be the first MLB player from Japan and leading to so many others following his path. You can give Valenzuela some extra credit as a broadcaster, but he wasn’t a true pioneer in ways like Buck O’Neil was.
Note: I’m aware that Valenzuela still had a much better career than Nomo, but the comparison still works, because they both still clearly fall short on the merits of their playing careers alone despite one being much better than the other in a direct comparison.
Go back and delve into the advanced stats. Fernando was clearly one of the best SPs in the game for a seven year stretch. Nomo was not.
I think letting in people like Kent, McGriff, and Baines is far more damaging to the hall then keeping out Bonds and Clemens. You can make an argument, albeit not totally logically consistent, for the latter, but letting in really good players just diminishes the whole point.
Barring some sort of shakeup at the Hall, I’m assuming that the 2029 ballot will include Sosa, McGwire, and Palmeiro, in order to expedite their ineligibility. I feel like the only reason they weren’t all on this ballot was the fear that one of them might slip through.
As far as I’m concerned the best thing that could happen this summer is Jeff Kent getting up on that podium and making a loud case for his frenemy Barry Bonds. Stranger things have happened.
Sheffield is getting so screwed.
The committee is an old-boys’ group and embarrasses itself. Kent being in while Whitaker and Grich are out is an abomination. Might as well put in Neifi Perez and Yuniesky Betancourt.
I think the interest in the current players under consideration is going to be dwarfed by whichever committee considers the candidacy of Pete Rose. Should Rose get into the HOF it will make the number one rule of Baseball meaningless, which will tend to devalue all the other rules. It would also help the candidacies of the steroid group, Shoeless Joe, and any other candidates who have been kept out of HOF because they broke the rules or were/are major as***&^*s. Electing Rose might set a standard that if you’ve broken various rules you won’t be elected to the HOF until after you’re dead. I’d love to hear Jay’s thoughts on the matter.
How does Bobby Grich get into the HOF? His numbers say he should be in.
It is absolutely ludicrous that the four best candidates on this ballot had the fewest votes. While I don’t want to impugn anyone personally, it is very difficult to charitably interpret these results as anything other than gross incompetence or cronyism.
There is simply no respectable argument for Jeff Kent getting 14 votes here. I’m sorry, but he was not a better player than many of his direct contemporaries on the ballot, and there is just as much evidence that he was free from PEDs as anyone else (not that we can prove a negative, but the point stands).
I used to really love and care about the Hall of Fame, and following the writers slowly become more enlightened over the past 20 years was a genuine joy and a subject of intense interest. The various committees, however, have absolutely ruined this for me. These choices are so capricious, so blatantly corrupt, and in such obvious service of the political agenda of a small handful of people that they have robbed me of the fun.
This sucks.
Kent isn’t borderline. Just disastrous. More things to worry about in the USA in 2025 (or, let’s say, 2016-2025) than this, but man, it just adds to my list of things that seem out of joint/unfair.
I’ve been giving speeches about work for two decades, and how it is very rare to find someone who is excellent and hates their job. I have, often in the past but not recently, cited Jeff Kent as an exception to the rule. I read a few interviews all those years ago where he said that he doesn’t like baseball, doesn’t watch games and doesn’t particularly like it. “Nascar” was his answer when favorite sport came up.
My biggest takeaway is that Omar Vizquel is going to do well with the Vets.
I hope that we can finally be done with Mattingly and murphy
So im guessing we get vizquel, delgado, evans, schilling, palmeiro, sosa, and mcgwire next. Maybe whitaker or Edmonds or lofton?
Once Mattingly and Murphy are in, we can be done with them. If you were a fan in the 80s, you know quite well that those two were clearly among the very best in the game for a long stretch, far longer than, say, Dave Parker or Harold Baines. When they were initially up for election, I looked at the career numbers for Murphy and Mattingly, and felt they fell just short despite their great peaks. But now that guys like Parker and Baines are in, I realize that I was wrong. They are far more Hall-worthy.
I hope he doesn’t ride a motorcycle to the induction ceremony!
Good thing we’ve got that character clause.
I’ve come to the opinion that past a certain point it is better to let an institution gone to rot fade to obsolescence. Build something new in its place. (To be clear this is not a swipe against the Jane Clark foundation but rather a broken, dysfunctional, and embarassing MLB HOF selection process). The league has no incentive to do so but it would be better for leagues to own these processes despite the blackmarks the MLB has accrued particularly with steroids & gambling.
To the extent that MLB is involved with keeping Bonds, &c out of the hall, I wouldn’t trust them with a process to pay a phone bill.
Baseball was the last sport I passionately followed, but letting my subscription over several sites lapse and walking away, perhaps forever, due to the actions of owners and in particular Jerry Reinsdorf to my two favorite teams (White Sox plus Bud Jerry and others killing the Montreal Expos) including endless tanking and their planned 2027 lockout.
The Baseball Hall of Fame has always been flawed, but the actions of the past few decades to stack the deck with crony inductees, blocking far more worthy candidates, including arguably among the few best hitters and pitchers of all time, made this the final nail in the coffin for any BBHOF interest on my end.
I’m not a fan of Bonds, Clemens or Rose on a personal level (I did root for Rose as a kid in the 1970s and 1980s), but it’s ludicrous they are excluded whereas dozens of scumbags, cheaters (steroids guys, Gaylord Perry, others), racists, and decades of terrible Veterans and the more recent Crony Committee inductees are in.
Baseball owners (excluding Bill Veeck and a few others), you did it, you killed off my favorite sport after five decades.
The 16 imbeciles who voted do not deserve a pass this time around. If their job was to troll baseball fans around the world, then they deserve a pat on the back. But if they were actually trying to choose baseball players for the Baseball Hall of Fame, which exists to make baseball fans happy, then they are comically incompetent at that task. When Harold Baines was elected and everybody went crazy, I defended the committee that chose him. Nobody is perfect, and Harold Baines was a kind, humble guy who didn’t ask to become a talking point for the Baseball Hall of Fame discussions. But this year’s results show that these committees have learned absolutely nothing from the Baines debacle. And yes, I know the names of the committee members aren’t the same, but they are the same type of people, and they certainly know how poorly the Baines election was received. These 16 morons had an easy job; the election of any combination of 2 or 3 players except for Jeff Kent, Delgado, and Sheffield would have resulted in millions of baseball fans being pleased with the results. If they had picked Fernando and Murphy, or Mattingly and Murphy, or Fernando and Mattingly, or Bonds, Clemens, and Murphy, or Mattingly, Bonds, and Clemens, they would have put a smile on the faces of millions of fans. If Fernando made it, all of Mexico would be in a state of euphoria. The selections of Mattingly and Murphy would have made Braves and Yankees fans happy, as well as millions of us who grew up in the 80s and know that they were clearly among the best of their era. If Bonds and Clemens were elected, millions of baseball fans would have a sense that the Hall of Fame is on the path to being fixed and will one day be a place that honors ALL of the greatest players in the game‘s history. And don’t you dare mention the character clause for the 1000th time. If character really mattered, Curt Flood, Murphy, Mattingly, and Fernando would have been elected long ago, not drug addicts like Tim Raines and Dave Parker. That idiocracy that convened yesterday had been placed at the 5 yard line with no defenders in sight, and yet they still fumbled the ball. They still, somehow, don’t get it. Their asinine voting led to a result that makes nobody happy, outside of Jeff Kent’s family. And they nearly elected Carlos Delgado, who is basically a Latino version of Harold Baines, a fine player who was never among the top 30 players of his era. How many millions of fans have a smile on their face today because Jeff Kent made the Hall of Fame? How many millions of fans would be elated if Delgado had received three more votes? ……..Exactly. Even Helen Keller could see that those fools failed baseball fans around the world yesterday. And each member of that committee should make a public apology for his or her role in the travesty, from Kim Ng and Doug Melvin down to Tony Perez and Robin Yount. You had a chance to do something good, but you blew it. And baseball fans around the world know it. Congratulations!
The 16 people who voted do not deserve a pass this time around. If their job was to troll baseball fans around the world, then they deserve a pat on the back. But if they were actually trying to choose baseball players for the Baseball Hall of Fame, which exists to make baseball fans happy, then they are comically incompetent at that task. When Harold Baines was elected and everybody went crazy, I defended the committee that chose him. Nobody is perfect, and Harold Baines was a kind, humble guy who didn’t ask to become a talking point for the Baseball Hall of Fame discussions. But this year’s results show that these committees have learned absolutely nothing from the Baines debacle. And yes, I know the names of the committee members aren’t the same, but they are the same type of people, and they certainly know how poorly the Baines election was received. These 16 voters had an easy job; the election of any combination of 2 or 3 players except for Jeff Kent, Delgado, and Sheffield would have resulted in millions of baseball fans being pleased with the results. If they had picked Fernando and Murphy, or Mattingly and Murphy, or Fernando and Mattingly, or Bonds, Clemens, and Murphy, or Mattingly, Bonds, and Clemens, they would have put a smile on the faces of millions of fans. If Fernando made it, all of Mexico would be in a state of euphoria. The selections of Mattingly and Murphy would have made Braves and Yankees fans happy, as well as millions of us who grew up in the 80s and know that they were clearly among the best of their era. If Bonds and Clemens were elected, millions of baseball fans would have a sense that the Hall of Fame is on the path to being fixed and will one day be a place that honors ALL of the greatest players in the game‘s history. And don’t you dare mention the character clause for the 1000th time. If character really mattered, Curt Flood, Murphy, Mattingly, and Fernando would have been elected long ago, not drug addicts like Tim Raines and Dave Parker. That committee that convened yesterday had been placed at the 5 yard line with no defenders in sight, and yet they still fumbled the ball. They still, somehow, don’t get it. Their asinine voting led to a result that makes nobody happy, outside of Jeff Kent’s family. And they nearly elected Carlos Delgado, who is basically a Latino version of Harold Baines, a fine player who was never among the top 30 players of his era. How many millions of fans have a smile on their face today because Jeff Kent made the Hall of Fame? How many millions of fans would be elated if Delgado had received three more votes? ……..Exactly. Even Helen Keller could see that those fools failed baseball fans around the world yesterday. And each member of that committee should make a public apology for his or her role in the travesty, from Kim Ng and Doug Melvin down to Tony Perez and Robin Yount. You had a chance to do something good, but you blew it. And baseball fans around the world know it.Congratulations!
I was with you until you made the character clause about “drug addicts.”
Well I didn’t “make” the character clause about anything. If you’re going to have a character clause, it should apply to all types of character issues, both positive and negative, not just the ones the writers choose to be important. Curt Flood was a Hall of Fame type player who sacrificed the remainder of his career to help all future players. Dave Parker was a Hall of Fame type player until he started hitting cocaine harder than baseballs. Raines slid headfirst so he wouldn’t break the vials of cocaine in his back pockets. “Character clause” indeed…
I would not have voted for Kent cause I always saw him as a not very nice guy with a marginal HOF case.
It’d be nice to hear from Tyler Kepner and Jayson Stark as to what actually transpired in the room. I assume they advocated for Bonds and Clemens, so it would be especially insightful to know the reactions of the other committee members to whatever cases they made for B&C. Why are they sworn to silence? The BBWAA members are free to reveal their votes if they so choose; why not this committee’s members? (I’d also like to know the two committee members who did NOT vote for Kent, so my opinion of them could be enhanced.)
The Hall expects its committee voters to treat the proceedings as confidential. Anybody who shares the level of info you’re hoping for would be burning a bridge – and the balloting is secret anyway; they don’t know how their fellow panelists voted, only what they’ve said in there. They walk out of that room not even sure anyone has been elected.
I’m not defending this system — believe me, I wish the process was transparent.