Barry Bonds was kept out of Cooperstown via the traditional route, but the Hall of Fame’s doors haven’t completely shut on baseball’s controversial home run king.
Bonds’ hotly debated candidacy is back on the table this week, a year after coming up short of the necessary 75% in his 10th and final year of eligibility on the writers’ ballot. This time around, it could be already-inducted contemporaries, such as Chipper Jones and Greg Maddux, that decide his fate.
A 16-person Contemporary Era committee — consisting of Jones and Maddux and five other Hall of Fame players, six team executives and three media members/historians — will convene Sunday, the day before the Winter Meetings begin in San Diego, to consider the candidacies of Bonds and seven others, including Steroid Era brethren Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro. Albert Belle, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Dale Murphy and Curt Schilling make up the remainder of the candidates.
