Jeff Kent will finally have a permanent home in Cooperstown.
The longtime infielder, who spent five seasons with the Mets during the mid-1990s, earned induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday via the Contemporary Baseball Era committee ballot.
The magic number for enshrinement was 12 votes from the 16-person group — a mark of 75 percent that’s also required for candidates on the annual BBWAA ballot — and of the eight players under consideration, only Kent earned enough support (14 votes).
Kent’s election was long overdue in the eyes of many voters and fans. He hit 351 of his 377 home runs as a second baseman, making him baseball’s all-time leader at the position. He also collected 2,461 hits across 17 seasons, and 510 of them came in a Mets uniform.
In his 10th and final year on the BBWAA ballot (2023), Kent earned a personal-best 46.5 percent of the vote.
Among the Contemporary Era candidates who fell short was Don Mattingly, and his hopes of receiving a plaque in the Hall of Fame will once again linger for a few more years.
The former Yankees capatin was denied entry for a 19th time on Sunday, as he fell six votes shy on the ballot.
Mattingly’s next crack at the Hall of Fame will come in 2028, when the Contemporary Era committee votes again. But the latest results reaffirm the chances of him achieving the feat are rather slim.
In spite of collecting 2,153 hits, nine Gold Gloves, and one AL MVP award across 14 seasons (1982-95), Mattingly never came remotely close to crossing the 75-percent threshold in 15 years on the BBWAA ballot. He topped out at 28.2 percent in 2001, his first year as a candidate.
Interestingly enough, Mattingly received less 2025 support than another former New York first baseman in contention. Carlos Delgado, who slugged his way through four 2000s seasons with the Mets, finished with a second-best nine votes on the Contemporary Era ballot.
Delgado received an insufficent 3.8 percent of the 2015 BBWAA vote — his first year in the running — which disqualified him from future ballots. Nevertheless, he was one of baseball’s most feared sluggers during the Steroid Era, as he smacked 473 homers and 483 doubles (2,035 totals hits) in 17 seasons.
Baseball icons Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Dale Murphy, Gary Sheffield, and Fernando Valenzuela were the other six players denied Hall of Fame honors on Sunday.
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