A Hall of Fame ceremony featuring Barry Bonds has often appeared unlikely given his ties to performance-enhancing drugs, but it’s possible Bonds’ best chance of future enshrinement will now coincide with legendary Giants manager Bruce Bochy’s first chance.
After Bonds failed to receive votes from 75% of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America electorate on his 10th and final ballot, his candidacy will be determined by the Hall of Fame’s “Today’s Game Committee,” which considers retired Major League Baseball players no longer eligible for election by the BBWAA, along with managers, umpires and executives, whose greatest contributions to the game were realized from the 1988-2016 era.
A 16-person Today’s Game Committee is scheduled to meet in December, 2022 and eligible candidates must receive support from 12 members of the voting body to be selected to the Hall of Fame.
Following a managerial career that featured more than 2,000 regular season wins and three World Series titles, Bochy is considered an obvious choice for enshrinement. As long as he remains retired, Bochy figures to be a leading candidate for the Today’s Game Committee, which meets again in December, 2024, to consider this winter.
If both Bonds and Bochy are elected together, they would be inducted into the Hall of Fame at a ceremony in July, 2023.
It’s too soon to know, however, how Bonds’ candidacy will be perceived by a much smaller electorate than the roughly 400 writers who never gave him the support needed for enshrinement. In their opposition to Bonds, many writers cited the Hall of Fame’s “character clause,” which takes into account a player’s sportsmanship and character.
Some of the 34 percent of writers who did not vote for Bonds pledged never to support a player who purportedly used steroids.
Bonds and Bochy only spent one season together in San Francisco as Bochy’s debut with the Giants came in 2007, which was Bonds’ last year as a major league player. Bonds hit 28 home runs, posted a 1.045 OPS and broke Henry Aaron’s all-time home run record under Bochy, who started a different Opening Day left fielder in each of his 13 seasons as the Giants’ manager.
Bochy was also part of the Giants’ contingent that first welcomed Bonds back to the organization in 2014 as the seven-time National League Most Valuable Player Award winner returned in an official capacity as a guest spring training instructor in Scottsdale, Ariz.
“Collectively within the organization, we felt that given Barry’s desire to continue to contribute to the Giants, we should be open-minded about giving him the same invite that we have given to other players in the past,” Larry Baer told the Mercury News at the time.
The Giants officially retired Bonds’ No. 25 during a 2018 on-field ceremony at Oracle Park, making him the first player in franchise history to have a jersey retired without first being inducted into the Hall of Fame.
“In our view, that (Hall of Fame enshrinement) was never a must,” Baer said before the ceremony. “It’s never been an absolute that you’re in the Hall of Fame to get it. I think it was one of several sort of loose guidelines.”
When the Today’s Game Committee meets in December, it’s possible former Giants ace Tim Lincecum will be among the players on the ballot. Lincecum made his debut on the BBWAA writers’ ballot this year, but failed to receive votes from 5% of the electorate, meaning he is no longer eligible for consideration by the writers.
It’s unlikely Lincecum, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, will eventually be enshrined in Cooperstown as the right-hander didn’t enjoy the longevity of most Hall of Fame pitchers.
Buster Posey, who will debut on the writers’ ballot in 2027, is considered the strongest candidate among former players to represent the greatest era of Giants baseball in the Hall of Fame, but Bochy might be the only real “lock,” from the group involved with winning three World Series titles.
