Bonds not likely to be voted in
Former Giant great shouldn’t stay out forever, though
Barry Bonds, the seven-time National League MVP, 14-time AllStar and all-time home run king, is once again expected to fall shy of receiving the necessary votes required to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The 2021 ballot marks the ninth time Baseball Writers Association of America voters have had the opportunity to elect Bonds and while the percentage of votes he receives continues to increase annually, the former San Francisco Giants star remains on the outside of the hall looking in.
When Hall of Fame voting results are revealed at 3:15 p.m. today it’s possible and perhaps even likely that no players will have received the necessary votes — 75% of the electorate — to ensure a place in Cooperstown. Three-time World Series champion and 216-game winner Curt Schilling appears to stand a better chance than Bonds as well as pitcher Roger Clemens. But people who follow Hall of Fame voting closely are not bullish on Schilling’s chances.
Nine years after only 36.2% of voters supported Bonds’ candidacy, that total is expected to clear 60% for the second consecutive ballot. A major obstacle Bonds faces, of course, is that a player can appear on the Hall of Fame ballot for a maximum of 10 years, meaning 2022 will mark the last time writers can elect Bonds to the Hall of Fame.
Barring an unforeseen change of heart from a significant portion of BBWAA voters in 2022, it appears Bonds will fall off the ballot without being elected by writers. A considerable number of voters refuse to support the candidacy of players with well-documented ties to steroid usage and while some have changed their minds through
the years, many never will.
It is inconsistent that former commissioner Bud Selig, who was in a leadership position throughout an era in which performance-enhancing drug use was rampant, is in the Hall of Fame and Bonds and Clemens are not.
Keep this in mind: The voters who refuse to support Bonds, Clemens and other suspected or proven drug users did not elect Selig.
The ninth commissioner in baseball history was elected in December 2016 by a 16-person voting body that formed, “Today’s Game” committee. It considers retired players, managers, umpires and executives whose greatest contributions to the game “were realized from the 1988-2016 era.” The “Today’s Game” committee includes members of the Hall of Fame, executives and veteran media members. It is also a fraction of the size of the BBWAA electorate which often features more than 400 voters.
This is the same committee that elected former players Lee Smith and Harold Baines in December 2018, and it’s a group that could be more open to the idea of electing Bonds, Clemens and other players who appeared in 2007 in the Mitchell Report that details the independent investigation into performance-enhancing drug use in baseball.
It’s impossible to know how Bonds’ candidacy will be viewed by the 16-person committee in the future. But if Selig found 15 supporters in a room of 16 given all of the mistakes he made during his tenure, I find it difficult to believe Bonds will be kept out of the Hall of Fame forever.
As a fifth-year beat writer, I am at least five years away from being eligible to vote for the Hall of Fame, which is a relief because I do not feel qualified to determine how Bonds, Clemens and others are honored. I’ll always know how watching Bonds’ 73-home run season and pursuit of Mark McGwire’s single-season record made me feel as a kid at a time when I was falling in love with baseball. But I genuinely believe it’s probably best if I don’t decide whether a visitor to Cooperstown sees his Hall of Fame bust or not.
Would I vote for Barry Bonds if I had the opportunity? Sure. Am I convinced I’d be making the right decision? No.
I love baseball, I love studying the history of the game and I love learning about dominance across different eras. I don’t think you can tell the story of the sport without telling the story of Bonds. But much like the museum in Cooperstown, Bonds’ story has its flaws.
Eventually, a committee might see it as an oversight that a phenomenal yet flawed player has been kept out of a phenomenal yet flawed institution. That realization will give Bonds his best chance yet.