Raines expected to reach Hall of Fame in final year

NEW YORK (AP) — The cloud of steroids hovers above Hall of Fame voting, much like it shrouded baseball in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Tim Raines, in his 10th and final year of eligibility, appears likely to gain election along with Jeff Bagwell when the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voting is announced tonight. Ivan Rodriguez, eligible for the first time, and Trevor Hoffman also could make it.

Along with focusing on the electees, many will study the vote totals of tainted stars Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

Bonds, a seven-time MVP who holds the season and career home run records, received 36.2 per cent in his initial appearance, in 2013, and 44.3 per cent last year. Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, has risen from 37.6 per cent in 2013 to 45.2 per cent last year.

Peter Gammons of the MLB Network who joined the BBWAA in 1972, voted for Bonds and Clemens for the first time. He differentiates between players suspected of steroids use before the start of testing with penalties in 2004 and those suspended for drug violations.

“I judge players by their eras and who they played against,” he said Wednesday. “Clemens and Bonds, they were the best pitcher, player of their eras. And while I wrestled with it, I just decided that how do I know who did and who didn’t? . . . I finally just decided, you know what? They’re so great that they should be in the Hall of Fame because it’s a museum of baseball history.”

Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz thinks just the passage of time and change in voting pool leads to a difference perspective.

“Writers come and go. New writers are given the opportunity to vote that may not have covered an era 20 years ago,” he said. “When it is strictly circumstance and evidence that you do not know or don’t have firsthand and you’re just following the rumour-ville, then that’s a difficult proposition to put in a writer, to be judge and jury.” Raines, fifth all-time in career stolen bases, received 24.3 per cent of the vote in his first ballot appearance in 2008. He jumped from 55 per cent in 2015 to 69.8 per cent last year and is on 89.8 per cent of the vote-tracker’s ballots, set to join Andre Dawson and Gary Carter as the only members of the Hall representing Montreal. He spent 13 of 23 big league seasons with the Expos, who left Canada to become the Washington Nationals for the 2005 season.