{"id":530668,"date":"2026-01-21T09:54:49","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T09:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/530668\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T09:54:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T09:54:49","slug":"andruw-jones-iconic-atlanta-braves-center-fielder-elected-into-baseball-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/530668\/","title":{"rendered":"Andruw Jones, iconic Atlanta Braves center fielder, elected into Baseball Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An Atlanta Braves fielding icon has joined the list of baseball legends to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, five-time All-Star center fielder Andruw Jones received more than 75% of the Baseball Writers&#8217; Association of America&#8217;s votes, making him the eighth member of the Braves&#8217; 1997 team to be elected into the Hall.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This was Jones&#8217; ninth appearance on the ballot. During his first appearance in 2018, he received just 7.3% of votes, narrowly avoiding ineligibility. He fell 35 votes short of induction in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>In the 1996 World Series opener at Yankee Stadium, at 19 years, 5 months, Jones became the youngest player to homer in a Series game, beating Mickey Mantle&#8217;s old mark by 18 months. Going deep against Andy Pettitte in the second inning and Brian Boehringer in the third of a 12-1 rout, Jones became the second player to homer in his first two Series at-bats after Gene Tenace in 1972.<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768989289_514_gettyimages-382083.jpg#.jpeg\" alt=\"Andruw Jones #25 \" height=\"349\" width=\"620\" class=\" lazyload\"  loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  Andruw Jones of the Atlanta Braves in action during a game against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on May 29, 1998.<\/p>\n<p>                Jonathan Kirn \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>He spent time with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers, the Chicago White Sox, and the Yankees. He finished his career with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of Japan&#8217;s Pacific League from 2013-14. In his 17 seasons, Jones hit .254 with 434 homers, 1,289 RBIs, and 152 stolen bases.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>During his time in the league, Jones earned 10 Gold Gloves, the award for the best defender in his position, the Hank Aaron Award, and the Silver Slugger Award.<\/p>\n<p>His batting average is the second-lowest for a position player voted to the Hall of Fame, just above the .253 of Ray Schalk, a superior defensive catcher, and just below the .256 of Harmon Killebrew, who hit 573 homers.<\/p>\n<p>He is the first native of the island of Curacao to be inducted into the Hall.<\/p>\n<p>Other former Braves on the ballot included starting pitcher Cole Hammels, who played on the team for one game, Gold Glove-winning outfielder Nick Markakis, and outfielder Matt Kemp.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Jones and fellow inductee and center fielder Carlos Beltran will be inducted on July 26 along with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/boston\/news\/jeff-kent-baseball-hall-of-fame-roger-clemens-barry-bonds\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">second baseman Jeff Kent<\/a>, who was voted in last month by the contemporary era committee after he received a peak of 46.5% of votes from the BBWAA during his time on the ballot from 2014-23.<\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<p>\n        More from CBS News\n      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Atlanta Braves fielding icon has joined the list of baseball legends to be enshrined in the Baseball&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2394],"tags":[191,46,4166,5,192,4,8001],"class_list":{"0":"post-530668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-braves","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-braves","10":"tag-atlantabraves","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-braves","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-national-baseball-hall-of-fame-and-museum"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115932491707828369","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}