OPINION:
My Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for the 2026 election came last week.
I wonder if President Trump got his.
The unpredictable Trump Tsunami could play havoc with Hall of Fame elections, from the 2026 Baseball Writers Hall of Fame ballot to be announced Jan. 20 to the Contemporary Era voting, which will take place on Dec. 7.
Sports have become part of the Trump agenda, from his suggestion last week that some host cities for the 2026 World Cup could be in danger of losing the games due to safety concerns to an ESPN report that he wants the new Washington Commanders stadium to be named after him.
The Hall of Fame has also been on his radar, and he has already strong-armed a dramatic change in the candidacy of one of the most beloved and controversial figures in baseball history.
The president has long been an outspoken supporter of Pete Rose, the all-time hit leader banned from baseball since 1989 after an investigation showed that Rose bet on the Reds as a player and manager from 1985 to 1987.
Several years later, the Hall of Fame ruled that people on the permanently banned list were ineligible for consideration. Rose died in 2024.
In April, the president met with baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and they discussed Rose’s status and the Hall. Two months later, the commissioner announced permanent bans in baseball now end with the death of the individual. He said his talk with the president influenced his decision.
“The president was one of a number of voices that was supportive of the idea that this was the right decision,” the commissioner said. “Obviously, I have respect for the office, and the advice that he gave I paid attention to, but I had a lot of other people that were weighing in on the topic, as well.”
That puts Rose into consideration for the first time to be inducted into Cooperstown. But that vote — not by the baseball writers but the Contemporary Era committee — won’t take place until 2027.
The Hall may not have to wait until then to feel the impact of more Trump power.
He has made his feelings known about one candidate up for a vote in two weeks by the 16-member Contemporary Era committee — Rogers Clemens.
Clemens and Barry Bonds, both considered among the greatest players in baseball history but also steroid cheaters who were turned away by the baseball writers after 10 years on the ballot, will be up for consideration. Clemens was named in the 2007 Mitchell Report on performance-enhancing drug abuse in baseball and Bonds testified to his steroid use in 2003 BALCO grand jury testimony.
In an August social media post, the president made it clear he wants Clemens enshrined in Cooperstown. “I played Golf yesterday with the Great Roger Clemens and his son, Kacy,” Trump wrote. “Roger Clemens was easily one of the few Greatest Pitchers of All Time, winning 354 Games, the Cy Young Award seven times (A Record, by a lot!), and played in six World Series, winning two! He was second to Nolan Ryan in most strike-outs, and he should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, NOW!”
There are no such star-studded names on the ballot sent out to the baseball writers last week, no one that might pique the sports-fan-in-chief’s interest, save one — Alex Rodriguez.
This will be Rodriguez’s fifth time on the ballot, and he hasn’t come close to the 75% necessary for induction. Last year he had 37.1%, his highest total to date.
Rodriguez put up career statistics that make him among the greatest players of all time — 696 home runs, 3,115 hits, 2,086 RBI and a .930 OPS over 22 years with the Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers and New York Yankees.
But he was perhaps the most notorious steroid cheater in baseball history, a two-time admitted user who was banned from the game for a full season in 2014.
Rodriguez has been on a rehabilitation campaign of his reputation of late. He became one of the owners of the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves in June and a new docuseries called “Alex vs. A-Rod” just began airing on HBO Max, where he has chosen to garner sympathy through brutal honesty — at least what passes for honesty for Rodriguez in 2025 — a so-called “recovering narcissist.”
The president is very familiar with Rodriguez and was critical of him when he was playing with the Yankees, even before the Biogenesis scandal that led to his year-long suspension.
“I would terminate his contract, personally,” he told ESPN radio in 2012. “I think George (Steinbrenner, the Yankees owner who passed away in 2010) would’ve done that. I would terminate his contract on the basis that when he signed, he didn’t say that he took drugs.
“Since he signed his contract, they found out that he took drugs. … He actually admitted that he took drugs. Now he’s not taking drugs anymore, and without the drugs, he’s a less-than-average player.”
The president said he’s never been a fan of Rodriguez — either as a player or a person. Rodriguez actually lived in a Trump building, and the president said he had a “bad experience” with A-Rod, though he declined to specify what it was.
But that was then. The businessman-turned-politician changes opinions on people by the hour. In 2020, he called Rodriguez for advice on a response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to USA Today. And Rodriguez has been spotted in recent years at Mar-a-Lago.
There’s been no word from the president on Rodriguez’s Hall of Fame hopes. But it’s likely sooner or later, it will get his attention and, almost certainly, he will make his feelings known. Rodriguez is the president’s kind of celebrity.
What impact it would have is questionable. I’m not sure how much influence the president wields with baseball writers. But he does seem to strike fear inside the halls of institutions. Ask CBS News.
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