NEWNow you can listen to Pak Gazette articles!
Alex Rodriguez will see his name for the fifth time on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for the Class of 2026, but it’s not likely he will make it given his ties to performance-enhancing drugs despite his illustrious career numbers.
But Rodriguez feels “hypocrisy surrounds the Hall” because Bud Selig, the former MLB commissioner who was in charge during the infamous Steroid Era, resided in Cooperstown.
“All of these things you’re talking about were under Bud Selig’s watch,” Rodriguez said on Stephen A. Smith’s radio show after a comment about Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, according to Awful Anusing.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON PakGazette.Com
Former professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez attends an NBA game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Miami Heat at Kaseya Center on March 7, 2025, in Miami, Florida. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)
“And the fact that those two guys aren’t in the Hall of Fame, but somehow Bud Selig is in the Hall of Fame, I think there’s a little bit of hypocrisy around that.”
Rodriguez, and any player on the Hall of Fame ballot, needs at least 75% of the vote to enter the Hall. Since he did not receive 40% of the vote in any of his first four elections, the results are not expected to change for Rodríguez in 2026.
BARRY BONDS AND ROGER CLEMENS GET ANOTHER BASEBALL HALL OF FAME VOTE VIA CONTEMPORARY ERA COMMITTEE BALLOT
Selig was inducted into the Hall of Fame after earning enough votes from the Today’s Game Era Committee, which has only 16 voters. Meanwhile, players like Rodriguez, Bonds and others associated with PEDs during their careers have a much larger group of Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) members voting for them each year.
Selig, 91, took over as interim commissioner in 1992 before becoming full-time commissioner in 1998. Serving through the 2015 season, Selig was at the forefront of the steroid era and all the controversy that accompanied it.
Commissioner Emeritus Allan H. “Bud” Selig speaks during the 2017 Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday, July 30, 2017 in Cooperstown, New York. (Photo by Alex Trautwig/MLB via Getty Images)
While it was fun to see players like McGwire and Sosa battle each other for the single-season home run record in 1998, as well as Bonds hitting 73 home runs in 2001 to break McGwire’s previous record of 70, there were rumors and reports about PEDs in the sport that didn’t get the recognition they should have received from the MLB until 2004.
The Joint Drug Agreement was launched that season, and the infamous Mitchell Report was released on December 13, 2007. The 20-month investigation by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell led to a 409-page report, which alleged a “collective failure” within MLB to address the problem of banned substances, while naming 89 current and former players who allegedly used them.
Among those listed in the Mitchell Report are Bonds, Jason Giambi and Jeremy Giambi, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, Eric Gagne, Andy Pettitte, Brian Roberts, Miguel Tejada, Mo Vaughn, José Canseco and many more.
Alex Rodriguez broadcasts before game six of the National League Championship Series at Dodger Stadium on October 20, 2024, in Los Angeles, California. (Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
In Rodriguez’s case, he served the longest suspension in league history for his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal, which was a Florida clinic accused of distributing banned substances to world-famous athletes. Rodriguez was initially suspended for 211 games, but it was later reduced to a full 162-game season that he had to miss in 2014.
Despite being fifth in home runs hit during his long MLB career, Rodriguez won’t be in the Hall of Fame anytime soon if Bonds isn’t. Bonds still holds the home run record with 762 home runs in 12,606 plate appearances.
