Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Ivan Rodriguez were voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame Wednesday.
Bagwell, a lifetime .297 hitter with a .540 slugging percentage over 15 years with Houston, enters with 86.2 percent of the vote in his seventh year of eligibility. Raines, who spent 23 years playing for a number of teams, primarily Montreal, received 86 percent of the vote in his final year on the ballot. And Rodriguez got in as a first-year player, earning 76 percent of the vote; “Pudge” hit .296 with 311 lifetime home runs catching for Texas, Detroit and others over a 21-year career.
Former Phillie Curt Schilling, who went 216-146 with 3,116 strikeouts over a 20-year career (spending nine years with the Phils), earned just 45 percent of the vote. He’ll go into his sixth year of eligibility next year.
Pat Burrell and Matt Stairs, both on the ballot for the first time, will now be removed from the ballot. They both earned zero votes.
Next year’s ballot will be interesting, as Jim Thome, Scott Rolen and Jamie Moyer become eligible, among others. Thome is a likely shoo-in.
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