Baseball Hall of Fame

After Wednesday's announcement of the 2017 Hall of Fame inductees, most of the talk is about Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, performance-enhancing drugs and the like. I wrote something on the subject if you're not sick of it yet.

Jeff Bagwell, Ivan Rodriguez and Tim Raines were all inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday, but former MLB ace Curt Schilling missed the cut, per BBWAA.com.

Brace yourselves, steroid hard-liners: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are going to the Hall of Fame.

Not this year. According to results released Wednesday by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, Bonds got 238 votes, or 53.9 percent, and Clemens got 239, or 54.1 percent. (As a side note, anyone who voted for Clemens but not Bonds or vice versa should have their voting privileges immediately revoked.)

The 2017 Baseball Hall of Fame class has been announced, and Jose Canseco is not happy about it.

According to Andrew Simon of MLB.com, Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Ivan Rodriguez all earned the minimum 75 percent of votes needed to get into Cooperstown, New York.  

Jeff Bagwell, Ivan Rodriguez and Tim Raines will take their rightful place in Cooperstown, New York, after they were announced as the three inductees for the 2017 Baseball Hall of Fame. 

The kid showed up unannounced, riding on the back of a motorcycle, wearing shoes that didn't match.

"One was larger than the other," Fred Ferreira remembered. "He had a sock stuffed into one of them so it would fit."

The Hall of Fame lists Frank Thomas as a first baseman.

Not as a first baseman/designated hitter. Not as a designated hitter/first baseman.

Maybe Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Manny Ramirez and others who were on the cutting edge of the performance-enhancing-drug era eventually will be voted into the Hall of Fame by the general electorate. Maybe last month's election of former commissioner Bud Selig will be the tipping point.

But that's nonsense.

And it's largely a non sequitur.

The deadline for voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America to submit their 2017 Hall of Fame ballots was Dec. 31. In the interest of keeping us all in suspense, however, the results won't be announced until Jan. 18.

In the meantime, here's a final look at this year's candidates, their HOF cases and the chances they'll punch a ticket to Cooperstown.

The first year Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot, I voted "not now."

OK, technically I just didn't vote for them, but as I explained then in a column for CBSSports.com, it was more of a "not now" vote than a "not ever" vote.

"They may never get in," I wrote, "but my guess is eventually they will."

Eventually is coming.