Former Rangers Star Rafael Palmeiro Gets Another Shot at Hall of Fame

Rafael Palmeiro is one of just seven players in MLB history to finish his career with at least 3,000 hits and 500 home runs.

Former Texas Rangers slugger Rafael Palmeiro is one of eight players being considered for the Baseball Hall of Fame as part of the Contemporary Players Era ballot.

The ballot was announced on Monday and features players who are not in the Hall of Fame and played the bulk of their career after 1980. Their initial Hall of Fame eligibility has been exhausted.

Palmeiro is one of just seven players to have at least 3,000 hits and at least 500 home runs for his career, as he finished with 3,020 hits, 569 home runs and 1,835 RBI. He played two different five-year stints with the Rangers and hit his 500th home run with the club. He played 20 years.

Those numbers alone, normally, would have earned Palmeiro induction on the first ballot. But Palmeiro found himself tangled in the web of baseball’s performance-enhancing drugs scandal late in his career. In the summer of 2005 he tested positive for steroids and was suspended for 10 games. He also blamed the positive test on a B-12 shot he told reporters he received from teammate Miguel Tejada.

This positive test came six weeks after he participated in a Senate committee hearing and waved his finger at the committee’s members declaring that he had never used performance-enhancing drugs.

“I have never used steroids — period,” he told the committee.

Palmeiro fell off the Hall of Fame ballot after his fourth year of consideration. 

The ballot will feature outfielder Barry Bonds, pitcher Roger Clemens, pitcher Curt Schilling, outfielder Albert Belle, first baseman Fred McGriff, outfielder Dale Murphy and first baseman Don Mattingly.

The Contemporary Era committee will deliberate on the eight candidates on Dec. 4 during the winter meetings, with an announcement the same day at 8 p.m. EST. Like regular Hall of Fame balloting, candidates must be on 75 percent of the ballots to earn induction with the 2023 Hall of Fame Class.

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