ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Elected to baseball\u2019s Hall of Fame more than 17 years after his final game, Jeff Kent couldn\u2019t control his emotions.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely unprepared. Emotionally unstable,\u201d he said after Sunday\u2019s vote announcement. \u201cThoughts are so far clouded.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kent received 14 of 16 votes from the contemporary era committee, two more than the 12 ballots needed for the 75% minimum. Steroids-tainted stars Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were among seven players who fell short once again.<\/p>\n
Kent will be inducted in Cooperstown, New York, on July 26 along with anyone chosen by the Baseball Writers\u2019 Association of America, whose balloting will be announced on Jan. 20.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hugged my wife after the the phone call had come in,\u201d Kent said, his voice cracking, \u201cand I told her that a lot of the game had come rushing back to me at that moment. Similar to my retirement speech, my farewell speech that I did in LA, it reminds me of the \u2018no crying in baseball.\u2019 Well, I was bawling when I left the game because all that emotion just overcomes you.\u201d<\/p>\n
A five-time All-Star second baseman, Kent hit .290 with 377 homers and 1,518 RBIs over 17 seasons with Toronto (1992), the New York Mets (1992-96), Cleveland (1996), San Francisco (1997-2002), Houston (2003-04) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (2005-08).<\/p>\n
His 351 home runs as a second baseman are the most by a player at that position. Kent\u2019s most productive seasons were with the Giants, joined in the lineup by the record-setting Bonds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve turned the double play better than anybody in the game during my era,\u201d Kent said.<\/p>\n
Carlos Delgado received nine votes, followed by Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy with six each. Bonds, Clemens, Gary Sheffield and Fernando Valenzuela each received fewer than five votes and can\u2019t appear on the ballot again until 2031.<\/p>\n
Bonds and Clemens also fell short in 2022<\/a> in their 10th and final appearances on the BBWAA ballot. Bonds denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs and Clemens maintains he never used PEDs.<\/p>\n \u201cBarry was a good teammate of mine. He was a guy that I motivated and pushed,\u201d Kent said. \u201cWe knocked heads a little bit. He was a guy that motivated me at times, in frustration and love, at times both. … If you\u2019re talking about moral code and all that, I\u2019m not a voter and I\u2019m trying to stay away from all of that the best I can because I don\u2019t, I really don\u2019t have an opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n Kent\u2019s relationship with the Giants became strained when he broke a bone in his left wrist during spring training in 2002. Kent told team athletic trainer Stan Conte he got hurt while washing his truck the previous day but Giants general manager Brian Sabean said three weeks later \u201cthere\u2019s mounting evidence from all sorts of eyewitnesses that says he fell off a motorcycle popping wheelies.\u201d<\/p>\n Kent scuffled with Bonds in the dugout that June 25 during a game in San Diego.<\/p>\n Kent received 15.2% in his first BBWAA appearance in 2014 and a high of 46.5% in the last of his 10 times on the ballot in 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cThe moments seemed to pass by in not utter disappointment but just disappointment, frustration a little bit that I wasn\u2019t better recognized,\u201d Kent said.<\/p>\n Kent was drafted by Toronto and four months after his debut was traded to the Mets for David Cone, who helped the Blue Jays win the World Series.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rap for me probably started out in the wrong direction in New York,\u201d Kent said. \u201cThere was this perception when I left New York and came to the West Coast that \u2018he wasn\u2019t a good middle infielder,\u2019 and that was so false.\u201d<\/p>\n