Bonds, Clemens Among Eight on Hall Ballot

The National Baseball Hall of Fame released the eight-player Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot — Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Gary Sheffield and Fernando Valenzuela — for a 16-person committee that will meet Dec. 7 at MLB’s Winter Meetings in Orlando to vote; candidates need 75% (12 of 16) for election and results will be announced that day. Any electees are slated for induction on July 26 alongside BBWAA selections. Bonds and Clemens remain the most polarizing names because of longstanding performance-enhancing-drug allegations and their prior failures to reach election on the BBWAA and earlier era ballots. The ballot mixes held-over candidates (Bonds, Clemens, Mattingly, Murphy) with newcomers (Delgado, Kent, Sheffield, Valenzuela). The Hall’s 2022 restructuring of the veterans/era committees established this Contemporary Era (post-1980) cycle and produced Fred McGriff’s unanimous election that year. Beginning with this cycle the Hall adopted a new rule that candidates receiving fewer than five votes will be ineligible for the committee’s next three-year cycle and repeat offenders can be barred permanently.