Come Sunday evening, by decree of 16 committee members rather than hundreds of voters, Barry Bonds could end up in a place so elusive to reach:
Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
The Hall’s 16-member Era Committee, comprised of former players, baseball executives, media members and historians, will meet Sunday in San Diego and consider the candidacies of eight players who failed to earn election in up to 10 years on the Baseball Writers’ Assn. of America ballot.
While the committee route – it was known informally for years as the Veterans’ Committee – can be viewed as something of a back door into Cooperstown, its honorees nonetheless carry the same distinction as those voted in with dispatch: Hall of Famer.
A look at the committee, its process and how and why players like Bonds and Roger Clemens may or may not find an easier ride down this road:
Who’s on the ballot?
Bonds, the seven-time Most Valuable Player, and Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young Award winner, lead a group of eight players that the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee will consider. That committee reviews the candidacies of players “whose primary contribution to the game came from 1980 to the present,” according to the Hall of Fame.
The other six players: Sluggers Albert Belle, Fred McGriff, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy and Rafael Palmeiro, and pitcher Curt Schilling.
How do they earn election?
Just like the writers’ ballot: Candidates need 75% of the vote. In this case, though, that means 12 yes votes from just 16 votes committee members compared to the hundreds of votes needed from baseball writers. In 2021, a player needed to be named on 296 of 394 ballots cast by 10-year members of the BBWAA.
Only Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz reached that plateau, with 307 votes. Bonds, in his final year on the writers’ ballot, received 260 votes, the 66% marking his strongest performance in his 10th and final year. Clemens received 257, and 65.2%.
Who votes in the veterans committee?
At least in part, a jury of their peers.
The committee includes seven former players, all who played at least a portion of their career with the nominees: Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, Jack Morris, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Frank Thomas and Alan Trammell. Perhaps notably, Jones and Maddux were Atlanta Braves teammates of McGriff, who hit 493 home runs yet peaked at just 39.8% of the vote in 2019, his final year on the writers’ ballot.
There are…