CT Native May Finally Make Baseball Hall of Fame

It looks like this is the year that Killingworth’s Jeff Bagwell’s long wait to be a Hall of Famer will soon be realized.

Bagwell, a Xavier High School graduate from Killingworth who went on to become one of the greatest first basemen in major league baseball history, narrowly missed election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his sixth year of eligibility last year.

Bagwell finished 15 votes shy of the 75 percent support he needed to join Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza in the class of 2016. The volume of votes he is already known to have secured from writer who previously abstained from checking his box forecasts a comfortable margin for election in 2017.

As of Saturday, Bagwell was polling at 91 percent, second to likely Hall of Fame classmate Tim Raines (91.5 percent).

This year’s Hall of Fame class will be announced this Wednesday.

Players who receive 75 percent or more of the vote are elected to the Hall of Fame. This year, 330 votes were required for election, meaning Bagwell came up just 15 votes short of enshrinement.

Bagwell spent his entire 15-year big league career with the Houston Astros. He played college ball at the University of Hartford from 1987-1989.

His credentials are worthy: National League Most Valuable Player in 1994, six top 10 MVP finishes, Rookie of the Year in 1990, a .297 career batting average, 449 home runs, 1,529 runs batted in, 2,314 hits, two 30-30 seasons (30 home runs and 30 stolen bases in the same year), three Silver Slugger awards and a Gold Glove
award.

In 1994, Bagwell was on his way to one of the most incredible offensive seasons of the last 60 years when a players’ strike ended the season prematurely on Aug. 12. In just 110 games, he batted .368 with 147 hits, 104 runs scored, 39 home runs, 116 runs batted in and 300 total bases. Translated over a full 162-game
schedule, those numbers would read 216 hits, 153 runs scored, 57 home runs, 170 RBI and 441 total bases.

Longtime teammate Craig Biggio, elected in 2015, is the only Hall of Famer with an Astros cap adorning his plaque in Cooperstown.

Photo credit: Tim Jensen.