2023 Contemporary Era Baseball Hall of Fame Results

 

Fred McGriff at his Hall of Fame press conference, December 5, 2022.

The Committee for the 2023 Contemporary Era Baseball Hall of Fame met on Sunday. The result is that we have one new Hall of Famer: Fred McGriff. I’m thrilled that McGriff got in. I always liked him as a player, and I’ve felt that the BBWAA really messed up by not considering his candidacy more closely. In his final year on the BBWAA ballot in 2019, McGriff got 39.8% of the vote, the only time he was named on more than 25% of the BBWAA ballots.  

McGriff was a unanimous selection of the 16-person committee, which speaks to the high esteem he is held in. The next highest vote-getter was Don Mattingly, who received 8 votes, 4 short of election. Curt Schilling got 7 votes, and Dale Murphy got 6. Albert Belle, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Rafael Palmeiro all received fewer than 4 votes.  

These results say to me that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens don’t have much hope of ever getting elected to the Hall of Fame. Sure, every Era Committee will be made up of different people, so a different group of 16 people could possibly have a different view. But the fact that two of the greatest players received fewer than 25% of the votes of this committee tells me that a different committee probably won’t elect them either.  

Bonds and Clemens have basically remained silent since their retirements from MLB. My advice to them would be: just tell the truth about your steroid use. For me, I’d rather just know the truth about the steroid era, rather than be stuck in the darkness of just blindly guessing about which players were clean and which players weren’t. I’d have a lot more respect for Bonds and Clemens if they just told the truth. The fact that they don’t loudly proclaim their innocence speaks to their probable guilt. But what incentive is there for Bonds and Clemens to tell the truth? None, save for presumably easing their consciences.  

I’ve seen more and more comments recently that are some variation of, “How can you claim to have a Hall of Fame that doesn’t include the hit king, the all-time home run leader, and a guy who won 7 Cy Young Awards?” My response is: “Easy. Pete Rose bet on baseball games while he was an active player, breaking one of the cardinal rules of baseball. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens most likely used steroids. While that technically wasn’t against the rules of baseball in the 1990’s, steroids were banned by every other major sport at that time and taking PEDs clearly violates the unwritten rule of sport: the assumption that it’s a fair fight—it’s my skill against your skill, not my spitball against your corked bat.”  

I’m very glad that Fred McGriff was elected to the Hall of Fame, and I’m fine with Bonds and Clemens outside of the Hall of Fame.