Hall Of Fame Makes Changes That Gives Players Like Bonds, Clemens A New Path To Entry: Fans React

• The National Baseball Hall of Fame announced it has created three new committees.
• These committees will allow players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens another chance at enshrinement.
• Read more news about Major League Baseball here.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame has announced the formation of three new committees: a Contemporary Era committee (for 1980 to present), which will be divided into one for players and one for everyone else, and Classic Era committee (for pre-1980).

In 2022, voters for the National Baseball Hall of Fame selected just one player, David Ortiz, for enshrinement. In 2021, they elected no one. In 2019, two players, Derek Jeter and Larry Walker, received the honor.

Among the players who had stellar Major League Baseball careers, but did not receive the required number of votes for enshrinement were Barry Bonds (762 home runs), Roger Clemens (354 wins), Sammy Sosa (609 home runs), Curt Schilling (3,116 strikeouts), Manny Ramirez (555 home runs), and Gary Sheffield (509 home runs).

It used to be that putting up huge numbers like those made a player a stone cold lock for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Not anymore.

Related: Baseball Fans React To Roger Clemens’ Statement About Hall Of Fame Snub

Bonds, Clemens, Sosa and Schilling went the full 10 years on the ballot and the closest any of them came was Schilling in 2020 when he received 70% of the vote (players need 75% to be selected). By comparison, Sosa, in his final year, only received 18.5% of the vote despite being ninth all time in home runs.

None of those other names stand much of a chance of getting in either during their 10 years on the ballot.

Manny Ramirez, in his sixth year on the HoF ballot, received just 28.9% of the vote. Sheffield, in his eighth year on the ballot, got just 40.6% of the vote.

Another player with huge numbers, Alex Rodriguez (696 home runs), only received 34.3% of the vote in 2022, his first year on the ballot.

However, with these new committees being adopted by the National Baseball Hall of Fame, these same players will now get another chance.

“It’s a revolving process that regularly gets looked at every few years to make sure the best players are going to be enshrined,” Josh Rawitch, Hall of Fame president, said Saturday in a phone interview. “We hadn’t looked at it for six or seven years, and ultimately the board decided there was a better way of doing it.”

The Baseball Hall of Fame just made it possible for players like Bonds and Clemens to still be enshrined

Sportico reports…

Each of the three committees will have 16 members and one will meet each year on a rotating basis—Contemporary players, Contemporary non-players, and finally Classic players and non-players. The number of candidates on any ballot will drop from 10 to eight, and each member of a committee is allowed to vote for three. It still takes 12 votes (75%) for election, so with 48 votes available, a maximum of four inductees a year can get in, although anyone can stay on the ballot in perpetuity.

One other change: A player must have been retired for 16 years, which means there’s now a one-year wait after falling off the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot, although Bonds, Clemens, Curt Schilling and Sammy Sosa were grandfathered in and will be eligible this year.

Under this new system, don’t be surprised if the aforementioned names, along with others like Rafael Palmeiro, Fred McGriff and Dick Allen, are given strong consideration for becoming new members of the Hall of Fame.

Baseball fans, upon hearing this news, expressed their opinions as well as made numerous other suggestions for players who they believe should recieve the honor.

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