By National Baseball Hall of Fame
The most exclusive team in sports has five new members.
Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Ivan Rodriguez join John Schuerholz and Bud Selig as the Class of 2017.
Today’s Game Era candidates, John Schuerholz and Allan H. “Bud” Selig were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday, Dec. 4, becoming members 313 and 314 of the Cooperstown shrine.
They will join Bagwell, Raines and Rodriguez as the Class of 2017, to be inducted July 30 in Cooperstown as part of the July 28-31 Hall of Fame Weekend. The Weekend festivities will also feature the presentation of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award to Claire Smith for writers and the presentation of the Ford C. Frick Award to Bill King for broadcasting excellence.
Since the inaugural Class of 1936, the National Baseball Hall of Fame has honored the game’s legendary players, managers, umpires and executives. Included in the 317 Hall of Famers are 220 former major league players, 30 executives, 35 Negro Leaguers, 22 managers and 10 umpires. The BBWAA has elected 124 candidates to the Hall while the veterans committees (in all forms) have chosen 167 deserving candidates (96 major leaguers, 30 executives, 22 managers, 10 umpires and nine Negro Leaguers). The defunct “Committee on Negro Baseball Leagues” selected nine men between 1971-77 and the Special Committee on Negro Leagues in 2006 elected 17 Negro Leaguers.
There are currently 74 living members.
Voting Results:
| Ballots Cast: 442 | Needed for Election: 332 |
| Votes | Percentage | |
| 381 | Jeff Bagwell | 86.2% |
| 380 | Tim Raines | 86.0% |
| 336 | Ivan Rodriguez | 76.0% |
| 327 | Trevor Hoffman | 74.0% |
| 317 | Vladimir Guerrero | 71.7% |
| 259 | Edgar Martinez | 58.6% |
| 239 | Roger Clemens | 54.1% |
| 238 | Barry Bonds | 53.8% |
| 229 | Mike Mussina | 51.8% |
| 199 | Curt Schilling | 45.0% |
| 151 | Lee Smith | 34.2% |
| 105 | Manny Ramirez | 23.8% |
| 97 | Larry Walker | 21.9% |
| 96 | Fred McGriff | 21.7% |
| 74 | Jeff Kent | 16.7% |
| 59 | Gary Sheffield | 13.3% |
| 45 | Billy Wagner | 10.2% |
| 38 | Sammy Sosa | 8.6% |
| 17 | Jorge Posada | 3.8% |
| 3 | Magglio Ordonez | 0.7% |
| 2 | Edgar Renteria | 0.5% |
| 2 | Jason Varitek | 0.5% |
| 1 | Tim Wakefield | 0.2% |
| 0 | Corey Blake | 0.0% |
| 0 | Pat Burrell | 0.0% |
| 0 | Orlando Cabrera | 0.0% |
| 0 | Mike Cameron | 0.0% |
| 0 | J.D. Drew | 0.0% |
| 0 | Carlos Guillen | 0.0% |
| 0 | Derrek Lee | 0.0% |
| 0 | Melvin Mora | 0.0% |
| 0 | Arthur Rhodes | 0.0% |
| 0 | Freddy Sanchez | 0.0% |
| 0 | Matt Stairs | 0.0% |
*All candidates in italics received less than 5% of the vote on ballots cast and will be removed from future BBWAA consideration