Bagwell, Raines, Pudge off to Hall
be a Hall of Famer. I wrote it on a ball tonight. It was kind of crazy, so it was cool.”
In his 10th and final year of eligibility, Raines was at 380 (86 percent). He was just the fifth player elected in his final year of eligibility after Red Ruffing (1967), Joe Medwick (1968), Ralph Kiner (1975) and Jim Rice (2009).
“Last night was probably the worst night I’ve had out of the 10 years,” Raines said. “I knew I was close, but I wasn’t sure.”
Raines started at 24.3 percent in 2008 and jumped from 55 percent in 2015 to 69.8 percent a year ago. He said modern metrics boosted his chances from days when voters considered primarily whether players had 3,000 hits, 500 homers or 300 wins.
“I think social media played a big role,” he said. “There are some things that I did that a lot of the guys already in the Hall of Fame didn’t actually do. So I think it kind of made them look a lot at me a lot closer and they looked a lot deeper, and I think the more they looked, I think the better it turned out for me.”
Rodriguez, at 45 the youngest current Hall member, received 336 votes (76 percent).
“I’ve been having trouble sleeping for three days,” he said.
Rodriguez, the 52nd player elected in his first year of eligibility, joins Johnny Bench in 1989 as the only catchers voted in on their first ballot.
“Johnny Bench was my favorite player growing up,” Pudge added.
Hoffman was five votes short and Guerrero 15 shy.
“Falling short of this class is disappointing,” Hoffman said in a statement. “I am truly humbled to have come so close. I hope to one day soon share a Hall of Fame celebration with my family, friends, teammates and all of San Diego.”
Edgar Martinez was next at 58.6 percent, followed by Clemens at 54.1 percent, Bonds at 53.8 percent, Mike Mussina at 51.8 percent, Curt Schilling at 45 percent,
Players will be inducted July 30 at Cooperstown along with former commissioner Bud Selig and retired Kansas City and Atlanta executive John Schuerholz, both elected a month ago by a veterans committee.
Bagwell, a four-time AllStar for Houston, finished with a .297 batting average, 401 homers and 1,401 RBIs. Among 220 Hall of Fame players, he is the 50th whose entire big-league career was with one club.
Raines, fifth in career stolen bases, was a seventime All-Star and the 1986 NL batting champion who compiled a .294 average and .385 on-base percentage. He spent 13 of 23 bigleague seasons with the Montreal Expos, who left Canada to become the Washington Nationals for the 2005 season, and joins Andre Dawson and Gary Carter as the only players to enter the Hall representing the Expos.
Rodriguez, a 14-time AllStar who hit .296 with 311 homers and 1,332 RBIs, was never disciplined for PEDs but former Texas teammate Jose Canseco alleged in a 2005 book that he injected the catcher with steroids. Asked whether he was on the list of players who allegedly tested positive for steroids in baseball’s 2003 survey, Rodriguez said in 2009: “Only God knows.”