Sheffield rips 'flawed' HOF voting system after falling off writers' ballot
Former star slugger Gary Sheffield ripped the Baseball Hall of Fame's voting system after falling short of election in his 10th and final year on the writers' ballot.
"It's a flawed system based on guys not watching you on a day-to-day basis. Because if they did, there's no way they could look at you with a straight face and say, 'This guy's better than this guy, and his numbers mean more than his numbers,'" Sheffield said during an appearance on Audacy's "The Bret Boone Podcast" this week. "Just from that standpoint alone, it's biased, and a lot of it is politics and a lot of other things when you look at it.
"For me, there's no one way that is going to fix this problem. But I can tell you that reporters are human beings, and the fact that they can tell you that they're not biased ... Whoever believes that is believing a fool because I just know for a fact that they are biased, and they do what they want to do and how they want to do it."
Sheffield received a late surge of support during the last two years and jumped to 63.9% in last week's vote. However, that fell short of the 75% needed for induction.
Despite hitting 509 home runs and earning five Silver Sluggers over his 22-year career, plus winning a World Series title in 1997, Sheffield's rise in Hall of Fame voting was slow. He debuted in 2015 at 11.7% and dropped to 11.1% in Year 4 before he finally started to climb.
Never shy about his opinions, Sheffield's outspokenness and brashness helped create a persona that won him few friends among baseball writers, who ultimately decided to keep him out of Cooperstown.
Sheffield was also connected to steroids during his career through his relationship with Barry Bonds and trainer Greg Anderson, which turned some voters away. However, he's consistently asserted he used PEDs just once, unknowingly, and he was only mentioned in the Mitchell Report as a witness after testifying at Anderson's trial.
The 55-year-old believes that shouldn't be held against him, especially since former commissioner Bud Selig, who presided over the sport's "steroid era," has a plaque.
"I spoke about any and everything that anybody ever asked me. The only thing that disturbed me is something that they said about the Mitchell Report," Sheffield said. "He said that I never went to Bud Selig's office to complain about players being on steroids, and that was disheartening to me because I feel like any time you meet with the commissioner there should be documentation or something to say there was a meeting that took place. To flat out deny that because Bud Selig's in the Hall of Fame, I was disappointed in that."
With his BBWAA eligibility now expired, Sheffield's eligible to appear on a future Era Committee ballot. His first chance could come as part of the next Contemporary Baseball Era ballot for post-1980 players, scheduled for December 2025.