2026 HOF Contemporary Era Ballot

[Frayed Knot]

Given the combative (to put it nicely) relationship between Kent and Bonds from their SFG days, do you suppose that Kent getting

into the HoF on the same vote where Bonds failed to even come close prompted Kent to send a 'Suck it Barry!' text?

Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if Kent goes on to hire a plane trailing a banner with that same message and has it flown over Bonds's house.

[Gwreck]

If and when one such character breaks through, it likely becomes a breach in the seawall keeping all PED violators out.

 

And yet the stunning hypocrisy of electing Bud Selig doesn’t seem to have caused such breach.

 

Who is supposed to get through the Bud Selig breach? George Steinbrenner and George W. Bush? Or maybe Marvin Miller?

I figure that the standard is already established with commissioners. If you last for twenty years or more, by hook or by crook, you are likely to get in. It's too embarrassing for baseball, keeping around somebody for that long while acknowledging that he wasn't such a special figure after all, so they pretend he is.

 

The point is that Selig failed to sufficiently address the PED and allowed the problem to grow as large as it did. And thus it is deeply hypocritical to induct him but not players who are suspected (without positive PED tests) in to the Hall.

[Gwreck]

FWIW, I saw a journalist on BlueSky/Facebook remind followers of the domestic abuse injury that the “truck washing incident” was a cover story for.

 

My recollection is that Kent’s injury was revealed to have come from a motorcycle accident, and not from “falling while washing his truck” as alleged. Which of course is problematic because motorcycle riding was an activity prohibited by his contract, but not nearly as problematic as what you wrote above. I didn’t recall a domestic abuse incident. Do you have a link?

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, that is my recollection too.

And hey, you won't get me to support Selig. If you ask me, almost every commissioner has been a prop put in place to protect the owner's interests, players be damned. And the "Interests of Baseball" is a romantically phrased smokescreen.

I imagine if you ask Alexa, she will tell you the same thing.

Actually, if Selig did anything, he rescued the owners from the bouts of integrity that A. Bartlett Giammatti and Faye Vincent were prone to.

[stevejrogers]

Yeah, that is my recollection too.

 

https://bsky.app/profile/christinakahrl.bsky.social/post/3m7gseygtwk2a

Bay Area reporter, I probably just read too much into her use of the word “domestic” and assumed both the car washing and eventual motorcycle excuses were covers for a darker story.

[Edgy MD]

[MetsBlue][/MetsBlue]Kenticle certainly has enough red flags in his past to give pause to any voter otherwise on the fence, just by being churlish and dicky out loud and proud.

 

• Alienated himself out of all good graces in the Mets organization, despite being the best player on some very bad teams.
• The public and professional lying about the bike wreck.


• Went to blows in the dugout, on live television, with Barry Bonds.


• His public and financial opposition (he donated money to help lobby for Proposition 8) to gay marriage.


• Appeared on Survivor, which you might not find to be gross, but I do.


• When he was voted off, decided to unload the crack he had been holding onto that the million dollar prize was "six hundred grand by the time Obama takes it," as if he wasn't already a gagillionaire.

 

Whatever was up his butt may well have helped make him the ballplayer he was, and he perhaps is a lovely man if you meet him on the right day (and aren't gay), but that is (of course) guesswork.

[Fman99]

I'm sure he's a huge piece of ****.