Barry Bonds is widely recognized as one of the best MLB players in history, retiring from the game and holding numerous all-time records that will likely never be broken. However, he is also the best player ever who will likely never be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Bonds, now 60 years old, last played with the San Francisco Giants in 2007. He made it on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot a few years later, making it to his 10th and final year on the ballot in 2022. After receiving just 66 percent of the vote, Bonds is no longer eligible to be inducted by the BBWAA,
- Barry Bonds stats (ESPN): .298/.480/.565, 1.045 OPS, 762 home runs, 1,996 RBI, 601 doubles, 514 stolen bases, 2,935 hits in 2,986 career games
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Based on his resume alone, Bonds might be deserving of his own wing in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He holds the MLB all-time records for career home runs (762), home runs in a season (73), career walks (2,558), walks in a season (232) and the single-season records for OBP (.609) and slugging percentage (.863).
Bonds is also joined by Alex Rodriguez and Willie Mays as the only MLB players with 500 home runs, 500 doubles and 300 steals. He’s also the first-ever player to record 500 home runs and 500 steals in a career. Yet, Bonds struck out on 10 consecutive chances to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
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- Barry Bonds career earnings (Spotrac): $193 million
Speaking to reporters after being inducted into the Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Fame, Bonds addressed his decades-long snub from Cooperstown.
“I don’t have to worry about those things no more in my life. “[I want to] hang around my grandchildren and my children. Those hopes [of making the Hall of Fame], I don’t have them anymore. I hope to breathe tomorrow [and see] if I can make it to 61.”
Barry Bonds on being kept out of the Baseball Hall of Fame
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A seven-time National League MVP with 14 All-Star selections and eight Gold Glove Awards, Bonds has certainly moved on from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America keeping him out of Cooperstown. Now, two years shy of being eligible for induction by the Contemporary Baseball Player Committee, Bonds seems uninterested in what’s to come in 2025.
The steroid scandal that rocked Major League Baseball and hung over the final seasons of Bonds’ historic career will seemingly impede him from ever being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, the MLB commissioner and managers who benefited from players using steroids are routinely inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and never have to face consequences for benefitting from the steroid use they were certainly aware of.
