Bonds’ bid for Hall in hands of era panel
Barry Bonds could get his ticket to Cooperstown punched as early as Sunday, when his latest Hall of Fame bid will be determined.
A 16-person electorate was announced by the Hall of Fame on Monday, and Bonds and seven other era committee candidates must receive 75% of the votes — 12 — for election.
The group will meet in San Diego on Sunday as a kickoff to the winter meetings, and the results of the voting will be announced at 5 p.m. that day.
After Bonds’ time on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot elapsed after 10 years, he moved to the Contemporary Baseball Era ballot, joining Albert Belle, Roger Clemens, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Dale Murphy, Rafael Palmeiro and Curt Schilling.
The eight candidates, whose main contributions came from 1980 on, were unveiled Nov. 7, and now we know the makeup of the 16-person committee of voters appointed by the Hall of Fame’s board of directors.
Seven are Hall of Fame players: Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, Jack Morris, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Frank Thomas and Alan Trammell.
Six are executives: Paul Beeston (Blue Jays), Theo Epstein (Red Sox, Cubs), Arte Moreno
(Angels), Kim Ng (Marlins), Dave St. Peter (Twins) and Ken Williams (White Sox).
Three are veteran media members/historians: statistical analyst Steve Hirdt, the Minneapolis Star Tribune's LaVelle Neal and The Chronicle's Susan Slusser.
Each voter can select as many as three candidates. The committee's non-voting chair is Hall of Fame chairman Jane Forbes Clark.
Bonds, who hit 586 of his 762 homers for the San Francisco Giants, received 66% of the votes in the last BBWAA election. He's the all-time homers king and won seven MVP awards, but his candidacy has been stalled because of his link to performance-enhancing drugs, similar to Clemens' and Palmeiro's.
Like Bonds, both Clemens and Schilling fell off the BBWAA ballot last winter. Schilling was close to getting elected two years ago and afterward requested to be removed from the ballot; he was denied. In his final appearance, amid a series of hateful comments toward a wide variety of people and groups, he lost support.
This year's BBWAA ballot includes newcomer Carlos Beltrán and holdovers Todd Helton, Scott Rolen and Billy Wagner. Like on the BBWAA ballot, era committee voters are asked to consider a candidate's record, ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the game.
The Hall of Fame induction will be July 23.