AP Photo/Kevin M. Cox
Roger Clemens plays catch with his grandson before a baseball game between the Houston Astros and the Tampa Bay Rays, Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, in Houston.
One of the world’s most powerful people is calling for greater recognition for one of Houston’s most well-known athletes.
But President Donald Trump does not have the power to put Roger Clemens in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. That’s a privilege reserved for journalists, baseball executives and Hall of Fame members.
Trump, after playing golf over the weekend with Clemens, took to social media to make his case for why the 63-year-old Clemens – whose statistically stellar playing career was marred by suspicions of performance-enhancing drug use – should be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Clemens, who grew up in the Houston area and spent part of his 24-year career with the Houston Astros, never received the required 75% of the vote during the 10 years he was eligible to be selected by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWA). The only other way former players can get in is to be selected by a 16-person committee of veteran media members, MLB executives and Hall of Fame members – as appointed by the Hall of Fame’s board of directors.
When Clemens was first considered by that committee in 2022, he received fewer than 4 votes, according to BBWA President Bob Nightengale, a baseball columnist for USA Today.
“It still to me is a long shot,” Nightengale told Houston Public Media. “The Hall of Fame players don’t want players in with steroid suspicions. That’s why there was such a low vote total the first time.”
The Contemporary Baseball Era committee will meet again later this year to vote on potential inductees into the Hall of Fame’s 2026 class. Trump made his pitch for Clemens in a Sunday post to his Truth Social platform, in which he noted Clemens’ record seven Cy Young Awards along with his 354 wins and two World Series championships.
“(Clemens) should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, NOW!” Trump wrote Sunday. “People think he took drugs, but nothing was proven. He never tested positive, and Roger, from the very beginning, totally denies it. He was just as great before those erroneous charges were leveled at him.”
The speculation that Clemens used performance-enhancing drugs stemmed from his inclusion in the 2007 Mitchell Report, an investigation by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell that was conducted at the request of then-MLB Commissioner Bud Selig. Clemens has denied using PEDs.
A hard-throwing pitcher who starred at Spring Woods High School and the University of Texas, Clemens then had a storied MLB career with the Astros, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees. He helped lead his hometown Astros to their first World Series appearance in 2005.
Clemens shared Trump’s message on his own social media post on Sunday, in which he revealed that he and his son, Kacy, played golf with the president at Trump National Golf Club in Washington D.C.
“I appreciate the love!” Clemens wrote. “DT knows more than anyone the fake news that’s out there. Everyone has their agendas… I played the game to change my family’s direction generationally and to WIN!”
Trump likened Clemens’ omission from the Hall of Fame to that of the late Pete Rose, who is MLB’s all-time leader in hits. Rose was banned from MLB in 1989 because he bet on Cincinnati Reds games while managing the team, and his ban also kept him out of the Hall of Fame.
After Rose’s death as well as similar support expressed by Trump, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred in May announced that permanent bans end with death and Rose is therefore now eligible to be considered for the Hall.
“… Pete Rose only got into the mix because of DEATH,” Trump wrote Sunday. “We are not going to let that happen in the case of Roger Clemens. 354 Wins – Put him in NOW. He and his great family should not be forced to endure this ‘stupidity’ any longer!”
Nightengale, of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, said he voted for Clemens when he was on the BBWA ballot and thinks he should be inducted along with Barry Bonds, MLB’s all-time home runs leader who also has been kept out because of suspicions of steroid use. Nightengale also said he thinks there is “zero chance” that Clemens would be selected before Bonds.
When asked whether he thought Trump might also stump for Bonds, Nightengale said, “I don’t think Bonds plays golf.”
“I think because it worked with Pete Rose getting reinstated, (Trump) thinks it can work this way,” Nightengale said. “It doesn’t work that way.”