SF Giants legend Barry Bonds has one last shot at the Hall of Fame
When Barry Bonds received 66 percent of the votes in last winter’s Hall of Fame voting, it was his last chance to make it on the BBWAA ballot, which since 2014 has had a ten-year limit. But it’s not his last chance to make the Hall entirely. The longtime SF Giants star has another opportunity to reach Cooperstown.
Barry Bonds on the field at Oracle Park for Will Clark's number retirement ceremony. (2022)
Robert Edwards-USA TODAY Sports
This Sunday at the winter meetings, members of the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee will vote on former players whose contributions came in the era after 1980. It’s an eight-player ballot that includes two other players that missed their final BBWAA chance last year, pitchers Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling. There’s also Albert Belle, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Dale Murphy, and Rafael Palmeiro.
Just like the regular ballot, these players need to get 75 percent of the vote to gain induction into the Hall. However, for the full BBWAA membership, that means 293 votes - Bonds was 33 short. For the 16-member committee, only twelve of them have to consider Bonds Hall-worthy. On the flip side, it only takes five people to block him.
Bonds won seven MVP awards and has MLB's all-time home run record. He’s also the all-time walks champion. But this vote isn’t going to be about his accomplishments on the field. As always, it’s a referendum on the performance-enhancing drug era in baseball, though David Ortiz made it last year despite failing a PED test in 2003. So the question isn’t whether the committee considers Bonds an all-time great - that’s not in question. It’s whether these sixteen people want to continue to honor "squeaky-clean" mediocrities like Jack Morris and Harold Baines over one of baseball’s greatest hitters of all time.
Here’s the sixteen voters, a mix of executives, sportswriters, and Hall of Fame players:
Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, Jack Morris, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Frank Thomas, Alan Trammell, Paul Beeston, Theo Epstein, Arte Moreno, Kim Ng, Dave St. Peter, Ken Williams, Steve Hirdt, LaVelle Neal and Susan Slusser.
Jones is probably a yes, given he called Bonds “the best baseball player I’ve ever seen.” No telling how Morris will vote, but he’ll probably do it in a racist accent. Slusser started voting for Bonds and Clemens in 2019. Neal has voted for Bonds since 2017. Hirdt is a stat guy, let’s call him a yes, and Epstein, Beeston, Moreno, Williams, and Ng have no business being moralistic about PEDs considering the many PED guys they’ve signed, developed, or traded for. Dave St. Peter is president of the Minnesota Twins, but he’s more of a business guy than a baseball guy - hard to tell how he’d vote.
Who knows which way Maddux will vote, but he may still be resentful that chicks dig the long ball.
Really, it comes down to the former players. It’s hard to say how Sandberg, Smith, Trammell, and Thomas will vote. Thomas seems like he should be a yes, since he has no problem promoting testosterone supplements. However, he has been extremely critical of PED users in the past.
Regardless, it should be close. I count nine probable yes votes and I would expect Morris to be a no, given his general attitude. But will the stars of the 80’s vote for Bonds to stay in Cooperstown with them?
As for the other candidates, Fred McGriff was no one’s idea of a Hall of Famer when he played, but he hit nearly 500 homers and never had steroid allegations. He has a good shot - and he’s far better than Baines. Plus, the Hall considers general contributions to the game, and the Crime Dog helped a whole generation of young players with their defensive drills.
Curt Schilling came 13 votes short of election in 2021, and voters tend to have more of an issue with PEDs than they do with Schilling’s Nazi memorabilia. Albert Belle corked his bat, swore at reporters, ran down a teenager who egged his house, stalked his ex-girlfriend, and did $10,000 of damage to team clubhouses every year - and he only played 12 seasons. He’s a no, as is Rafael Palmeiro, a more unrepentant steroid user who wasn’t nearly as good as Bonds.
Clemens probably gets in if Bonds does, though he does have the advantage of being teammates with Lee Smith. Dale Murphy probably wasn’t good enough for long enough, and Mattingly never cracked 30 percent on the regular ballot.
What should be more damning than the PED scandal is Bonds' history of domestic abuse. His ex-wife and ex-girlfriend both reported that Bonds abused them physically and emotionally. Sun Bonds testified in court that Bonds regularly beat her, once knocking her unconscious when she was eight months pregnant. And ex-girlfriend Kimberly Bell told Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams that Bonds was jealous and possessive, regularly threatening to kill her.
Is that disqualifying for the Hall of Fame? It hasn't been in the past, from Ty Cobb to Joe DiMaggio to Bobby Cox, but it should be mentioned at the very least when bestowing baseball's highest honor.
So it’s McGriff yes, Schilling yes, and Bonds and Clemens a very deep maybe. Our prediction? Just like the last writers’ ballot, Barry Bonds probably falls short of induction, and many SF Giants fans will take to social media in frustration.
