Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens not voted into Baseball Hall of Fame
Yet again, neither Barry Bonds nor Roger Clemens earned enough votes to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Heading to Cooperstown as part of the 2017 class are Jeff Bagwell, Tim “Rock” Raines, and Ivan “Pudge" Rodriguez, with Trevor Hoffman and Vladimir Guerrero narrowly missing on election.
Bonds earned 53.8% of the vote this year, up from the 44.3% he garnered in 2016. Despite being baseball's home run king with 762 career home runs, better than Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth, his various links to PED use have stymied his efforts to be enshrined in Cooperstown.
Clemens's legacy has been similarly shrouded after he was implicated in the 2007 Mitchell Report on steroid use in baseball. Clemens won a record seven Cy Young awards and won the AL MVP in 1986. Despite his dominance, he could not improve enough on the 45.2% of the Hall of Fame votes he got last year, capturing 54.1% to stay ahead of Bonds but still far below the 75% threshold needed for election.
Both Bonds and Clemens have been on the ballot for five years now and have five years remaining.