Due to concerns about his potential steroid usage, the holder of one of the most prestigious records in sports has yet to be elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
And for Barry Bonds, the clock is ticking.
Bonds, who set a single-season record with 73 home runs in 2001 and has an MLB-best 763 overall, only has three more cracks at getting voted into Cooperstown (counting this year).
On paper, Bonds is a unanimous inductee: .298 average, 9,847 AB, 2,227 runs, 2,935 hits, 601 doubles, 77 triples, 762 HR, 1,996 RBI, 514 SB, 2,558 BB, 1,539 K, 1.051 OPS, 2,986 games in 22 seasons with the Pirates (1986-92) and Giants (1993-2007).
But, the shadow cast by assumed steroid usage, even though he never failed a test, has kept Bonds out of the HOF thus far.
Will that change in 2020?
On the ballot for the eighth time, Bonds had received 75.3 percent of the vote (116 of 154) on returned ballots. The problem for Bonds is that there are more than 250 more ballots that need to be filed.
The highest Bonds has ever finished in voting was at 59.1 percent last year.
Cooperstown candidates must receive at least 75 percent of the vote for election into the Hall. As long as they receive at least five percent of the vote, candidates can be on the ballot for 10 years.
“If Bonds is going to be elected by 2022, it would greatly enhance his chances to receive at least 65 percent of the vote this year,” according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today. “He has two more years of eligibility, but he’s running out of time. It may be in the final year that the voters who never checked Bonds’ name believe he’s been punished long enough.”
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