COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — The lawn outside the Clark Sports Center held thousands on Sunday afternoon, and by the time the last speech wrapped, three more faces stared out from bronze plaques on the wall. Carlos Beltrán, Andruw Jones, and Jeff Kent — the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026 — took their seats among the immortals in the smallest induction class since Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen went in together in 2022.
Beltrán and Jones were elected by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Kent needed a different door — the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, a 16-person panel of Hall of Famers, executives, and historians, put him through in December with 14 of 16 votes after he’d exhausted ten years on the writers’ ballot without ever cracking 47%.
Carlos Beltrán went in on his fourth ballot, landing at 84.2% after climbing from 46.5% to 57.1% to 70.3% across his first three years. A nine-time All-Star and the 1999 American League Rookie of the Year, Beltrán finished his career with 2,725 hits, 435 home runs, and 312 stolen bases — one of only five players ever to reach 400 homers and 300 steals, sharing that club with Barry Bonds, Andre Dawson, Willie Mays, and Alex Rodriguez. He wore a Mets cap on his plaque.
“To the Mets fans, thank you for believing in me,” Beltrán said. “You challenged me. You let me know when I needed to be better, and that was a lot of times. I got to hear those boos, but I also appreciate your support along the way.”
The postseason numbers are where Beltrán separates himself from nearly everyone: a .307/.412/.609 slash line across 65 playoff games, including eight home runs in 12 games with the 2004 Astros. He won his lone World Series ring with the 2017 Astros — a legacy the sign-stealing scandal permanently shadowed, though not enough to keep him out of Cooperstown.
Andruw Jones made it in his ninth year on the ballot, his support rising from 7.3% in year one to 78.4% this year — one of the slowest, most stubborn climbs in recent voting history. Ten consecutive Gold Gloves from 1998 to 2007. A 51-homer season in 2005. 434 career home runs. And a debut that nobody who watched it will forget: at 19 years and 180 days, Jones became the youngest player ever to hit two home runs in a World Series game, doing it in Game 1 of the 1996 Fall Classic and breaking a record held by Mickey Mantle.
“I never got to see Willie Mays play, so Ken Griffey was my guy,” Jones said. “I wanted to be like him. For me and Carlos to join Griffey, Willie, and these other great center fielders in the Hall of Fame is hard to put into words for me.”
He also thanked Chipper Jones — “Larry Wayne Jones, some call him Chipper” — for years of advocacy. “The Jones boys are in Cooperstown now.”
Jeff Kent took the stage and told a story about a pickup truck. At 16, he was racing motorcycles and driving his great-grandparents’ Plymouth Volunté. His father offered a deal: earn a college scholarship, get a truck. Kent quit racing, focused on school and baseball, won the scholarship, and got the truck. It’s still in his garage.
“This day isn’t about me. It’s about baseball,” Kent said. “Baseball was here long before me and it’ll be here long after I sit back down.”
The numbers back up the bronze. Kent’s 377 home runs are the most by any primary second baseman in history. His 1,158 RBI rank third at the position. He won the 2000 National League MVP with the Giants, collected four Silver Sluggers, went to five All-Star Games, and hit double-digit home runs in every single season of his career — including a partial rookie year in 1992. The writers never came around. The committee did, overwhelmingly.
Three players, three very different paths, one afternoon on the grass in Cooperstown. The plaques are up.