The 2026 Hall of Sunlight and Shadows
Began: January 1, 2026. Published: January 19, 2026.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! – Movie actor Frank Martin as ‘The Great Oz’ [The Wizard of Oz]
Introduction
Has there ever been a more uninteresting Baseball Hall of Fame [BHOF] election as the one now being held in 2026? Has there ever been a more fascinating BHOF election process as the one in 2026? The 2026 election of new players to the BHOF hardly has the excitement of most (or maybe all) previous elections. The main election, by the Baseball Writers Association of America [BBWAA], has absolutely no new and transcedent players on its ballot. The best of these new players, pitcher Cole Hamels, is a marginal Hall of Famer at best. The 2nd best of these new players, outfielder Ryan Braun, is even more marginal and comes equipped with a steroid scandal that should be disqualifying. Of the leftover players on the BBWAA ballot [players not elected in their inital appearance but remaining on the ballot for up to 10 years as long as they receive at least 5% of the vote], there are two surefire Hall of Famers, Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez. However, both of these men were caught abusing steroids after Baseball criminalized it completely in 2004. Although receiving good support, it is now apparent that neither player will ever make the 75% requirement for election during their 10 years on the ballot. However, there are two players on the ballot who have been making steady progress toward that 75% threshold. One is Carlos Beltran, a good Hall of Fame candidate, who is in his 4th year on the ballot. He would have been elected already but for his participation in the 2017 Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. The other one is Andruw Jones, whose candidacy relies on the belief that Jones was the greatest defensive centerfielder of all time. In other words, the belief that his defensive stats, the most unreliable of any type of Baseball statistic, prove his greatness. For nine years, some of the BBWAA voters have struggled with the fact that, if these statistics are bogus, Jones may not be worthy.* None of these 2026 candidates excite the casual Baseball fan. In other words, the 2026 BBWAA BHOF election is not all that inspiring.
* For good measure, Jones also has a weird strip club scandal and domestic violence allegation on his resume.
The 2026 Back Door to the BHOF
On the other hand, there is the back door into the BHOF. This back door to the BHOF consists of three Committees selected by Major League Baseball [MLB] to review non-players and the players passed over by the BBWAA in the main election. Each of the Committees votes for a different segment of these overlooked people. There is a one Committee for those players active before 1980. Another Committee for the players active after 1980 who were already rejected by the BBWAA. And a third Committee for non-players like owners, executives, managers, bat boys, etc . Each of the three Committees votes every three years on a rotating basis. Of course, each of these three Committees is a descendent of what used to be called the BHOF Veteran’s Committee. They are not called the Veteran’s Committee because virtually every inexcusable election to the BHOF came out of that Committee. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Veteran’s Committee reached its nadir when a bunch of old-time baseball players dominated it and threw their teammates into the BHOF by the boatload. However, these new versions of the old Veteran’s Committee may be even worse. These Committees are comprised of sixteen electors. They meet. They are provided a list of 8 people that they can vote on. Each elector can vote for 3 players. If twelve of the sixteen electors can agree on any of these 8 players, that player gets elected. The identities of the people serving on these Committees are released just before the actual election (to supposedly protect them from pressure). But no one releases that identities of whomever picked the eight players for the Committee. Or the Committee (or whomever) picked that Committee either. It is a basically completely opaque process with a possible Committee picking a Committee to pick the people that the final Committee can vote on. For the 2026 BHOF Veteran’s Committee election, this strange behind the scenes process was out front for anyone to see: the BHOF was playing favorites, helping some candidates while sabotaging others.
The Committee to stack the Committee that elects the Committee
Before the Veteran’s Committee even voted in December 2025, the Powers that be (i.e. MLB) changed a bunch of the rules under which the Committee would vote. In May of 2025, they announced that players formerly banned from the BHOF would became eligible once again after they died. This odd change of heart was due completely to the influence of the United States President, Donald Trump, who was advocating strongly for the election of recently deceased Pete Rose to the BHOF. Rose had been banned from MLB and the BHOF for gambling on Baseball. There was no question that he was guilty, Rose admitted that he did it. Since the 1919 Black Sox scandal when gamblers rigged the World Series, the sin of betting on Baseball had been the sport’s equivalent of a death sentence. If you were caught gambling on the game, you were permanently ineligible forevermore. So why did MLB, out of the blue, decide to forgive Rose? Politically, the move made perfect sense. In the odd upside down world of Donald Trump, criminals were the victims and Rose was being “unfairly punished.” By acquiesing to Donald Trump’s whims and making Rose (plus Shoeless Joe Jackson and others) once again eligible, MLB avoided getting into a dispute with the mercurial politician and his lackeys. Forgiving these dead players was preferable to perhaps having the government reconsider MLB’s anti-trust exemption. But then, after Trump’s short attention span wandered, MLB did something truly interesting. They changed the eligibility rules for players being voted on by the three Veteran’s Committees. Going forward, if a player was nominated for election by the Committee and did not get at least five of the 16 votes, that player could not be on the next ballot. And, if that scenario happened again, that player would then become permanently ineligible for election. The BHOF pointed the gun at Pete Rose’s chances of being elected to the BHOF, but they did not pull the trigger yet.
Baseball Hypocrisy in Action
It was obvious that the rule change was instituted to eventually negate any chance of Rose’s election to the BHOF. The strange twist was making Pete permanently ineligible only after he did not receive 5 votes in two separate elections. The next chance for Pete Rose to be elected will be in 2028 when the Committee to elect players who played before 1980 votes again. But in 2028, Trump will still be President. So the Powers that be kicked their Rose problem to 2034 (at least) unless, against all odds, Pete is elected in 2028. Much more likely is that Rose will eventually fail to get the five votes that are necessary in two elections and return to being permanently ineligible. Of course, Trump should no longer be the U.S. President in 2034 (unless he appoints himself King). Of course, there is also the question that, if this was MLB’s plan, why announce it before the 2026 election? It was because the new Rule was not aimed only at Pete Rose. There are three groups of former Baseball players that MLB and the BHOF have traditionally treated as outcasts. Rose and all the other gambler corrupted guys are one gang. Another bunch of mistreated former players would be the old time Negro League players. The BHOF and MLB have usually simply ignored the Negro Leaguers, only putting some in whenever the pressure to honor them grew too great. And, last but not least, the final group of outcasts would be the steroid-tarnished players playing in the 1990s before steroids were actually banned. The greatest of these steroid-stained players were Barry Bonds, an outfielder, and Roger Clemens, a pitcher. Both men were All-Time greats.* Bonds could make a case that he was the greatest hitter that ever played; and Clemens could make the case that he was the greatest pitcher who ever pitched. Each player had spent the maximum 10 years on the BBWAA ballot without getting elected. The Committe to elect the Committee to pick the players that another Committee votes on had always Bonds and Clemens in its sights to banish along with Rose too.
Eight Men for Immortality
In 2025, the BHOF announced that the 8 men (who played after 1980) and were under consideration by the Veteran’s Committee for a 2026 induction were: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Gary Sheffield and Fernando Valenzuela. Why these eight men out of the huge pool of eligible candidates? No reasons will ever be given. Regardless, it was still an interesting group. Two of the men, Delgado and Valenzuela had been given short shrift by the BBWAA. Delgado spent just one year on the writer’s ballot, falling off after not making the required 5% in 2015 (3.8%). Valenzuela lasted just two years (2003-6.2% & 2004-3.8%) before dropping off. Why include them? Fernando had recently passed on but including Carlos seemed totally random. Two other players (Mattingly and Murphy) had stayed on the BBWAA ballot for the entire 15 years that was possible back then. But support for both men peaked early and then flatlined. Mattingly was on the writer’s ballot from 2001-2015 and peaked at 28.2% in his first year. Murphy was on the writer’s ballot from 1999-2013 and peaked at 23.2% in his second year. Both men were were superstars at their best, but the BBWAA must have judged that their peak wasn’t long enough. In 2014, the BHOF reduced the maximum years on the BBWAA ballot from 15 to 10 years. This was pretty much explicitly done to ensure that any player accused of abusing steroids would run out of time before they received the required 75% of the BBWAA vote to get elected. This rule change stopped the next three players dead in their tracks. Barry Bonds maxed out at 69.6% in his tenth year [2022]; Clemens was stopped at 68.3 in his 10th year; and Sheffield stalled out at 68.4% in his final year [2024]. There was one other player on the 2026 Veteran’s Committee list: Jeff Kent. He was unlike any other player on the list. He had spent the full 10 years on the BBWAA ballot (2014 to 2023). His vote totals had slowly risen. In his tenth and final year, Kent peaked at 46.9 percent before glory was denied.
The Crooked Path to Immortality
On December 7th of 2025, the BHOF announced that Kent had been elected and would be inducted on Sunday, July 26, 2026 (with whoever the BBWAA picked on January 20, 2026). It was also announced that 4 players had not receieved the required 5 votes to appear on the next appropriate Veteran’s Committee in 2029. They were, unsurprisingly, Bonds, Clemens, & Sheffield plus the unfortunate Valenzuela (who almost surely never took a steroid in his life). The BHOF had taken the first step to banishing Bonds, Clemens, & Sheffield to Baseball purgatory. In 2032, each man could be put back on the Veteran’s Committee ballot for one last ride before once again not receiving the necessary five votes and being thrown into the fiery pit. It was also said that both Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy received 6 votes. Their journeys to possible induction continued to mirror the other man’s path. By far the strangest announcement came next. Carlos Delgado, who had never really gotten any support on the BBWAA ballot and far less than any of the other candidates, received 9 votes. There is now a good chance that Delgado will be elected in 2029. This was an absolute surprise. And Jeff Kent received 14 of the 16 possible votes and was elected. In retrospect this was no surprise at all. Jeff Kent had twisted in the wind for 10 years on the BBWAA ballot for the simple reason that he was not a good defensive second baseman. Jeff Kent was a great hitter (for a second baseman) but he had a reputation for an iron glove. So why did the BBWAA pick and induct him immediately? It may have to do with the fact that, for most of his career, Jeff Kent had been Robin to Barry Bond’s Batman (i.e. the 2nd best player on the San Francisco Giants). It may have had something to do with the fact that Kent and Bonds disliked, some say hated, each other. The Baseball Establishment (i.e. MLB) was not fond of Bonds either. What better way to let Bonds know it than to elect his despised sidekick while taking one more step toward an supposed everlasting %@& you.*
*Of course, everlasting may be a wee bit of an overstatement since the BHOF changes it rules like a prostitute changes their underwear.
Conclusion
Uusually, the Baseball Hall of Fame is about nostalgia. Professional Baseball sells this sentiment all day long. But Major League Baseball is more exactly a business. And a Business doesn’t always celebrate the same things that a consumer (fan) would. In the early years of the sport, Major League Owners forced Players into a form of indentured servitude with a technically illegal reserve clause that kept a Player from ever playing out his contract. As far as Organized Baseball was concerned, your team owned you. Somehow, the Owners even convinced (bribed) the United States Supreme Court to accept this violation of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution (as as far as Baseball went). The almost inevitable result of the owners ripping off the players by denying them their rights was the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. But the Owners from Albert Spalding to Charles Comiskey that enforced the illegal reserve clasue are in the BHOF while the rightfully aggrieved players like Joe Jackson are not. The greatest sin that Major League Baseball ever committed was forbidding their teams to hire players of African-American origin. But MLB Executives like Kenesaw Landis who enforced the so-called Color Line were elected immediately to the BHOF while the greatest Black Players waited years for their due and have only been admitted grudgingly. Recently, Baseball had yet another great period of scandal during the 1980s and 1990s. MLB Owners, resentful that Players had finally gotten rid of the reserve clause, tried to unlawly collude together to continue to enforce it. The greed of the Owners led to the 1994 World Series being canceled and such a strained relationship with the players that steroids were allowed to spread through the sport unchecked. But Bud Selig, who was a mastermind behind the collusion and later the Commissioner of Baseball who canceled the World Series, is in the BHOF while many players who lined the Owners pockets with money by taking dangerous steroids can still only get into the Hall with a ticket. Is any of this fair?
Coming Soon?
The 2026 Baseball Hall of Fame elections have simply been a reminder of all these facts. It is hard to celebrate the election of players to the BHOF while being hit in the face with the unattractive truth. Hopefully, the BHOF can go back next year to being (mostly) about nostalgia. In the mind’s eye, someone will see the great Babe Ruth hitting a long home run or Wille Mays gliding gracefully back for an impossible catch or Satchel Paige throwing a pitch not seen by this generation rather than the raw politics of Baseball glory.* In 2027, there will be an interesting debate about the candidacy of Buster Posey. In 2028, Albert Pujols, an indisputable all-time great, will be up for election (but also Robinson Cano). In 2029, there will be a deluge of Hall of Famers (Miguel Cabrera, Zack Greinke and Joey Votto). Perhaps time will wash away the stench.
* Tip of the hat to the original title of Bill James’ Hall of Fame book.