HOUSTON -- Jeff Bagwell spent a career putting up huge statistics, the kind that often get posted on plaques in Cooperstown. On Wednesday, the former Astros slugger might well hit the big number he needs to reach the Hall of Fame.
Whether he's elected or not, Bagwell said he'll feel something other than happiness or disappointment when the results are announced.
"Honestly," he said, "relief, both either yes or no."
This is Bagwell's seventh try on the ballot -- he got 41.7 percent of the votes the first time, and was up to 71.6 percent last year in selections by members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. It takes 75 percent to make the Hall.
"I just want to get it over with," Bagwell, 48, said. "This is the first year I've kind of been keeping track of it and just kind of looking. So I'm excited about it."
The 1994 National League MVP and four-time All-Star spent his entire career with Houston. The first baseman holds the Astros records of 449 home runs and 1,529 RBI. In 15 seasons, he had a .408 on-base average, a .540 slugging percentage and batted .297.
If he's elected, he'll join longtime teammate Craig Biggio, who was elected in 2015, as the only players to go in as Astros.
"It would be wonderful," he said. "Was so proud of him when he got in. If I can get in, too, and have two of us there, especially two guys that played together for 15 straight years. That would be very special."
Biggio has said that there's "no doubt" Bagwell is a Hall of Famer and has lobbied for him to get in for years.
Bagwell knows the wait Wednesday will be a long and angst-filled one for him. The wait will be far different than how he imagines Ken Griffey Jr. felt last year when he breezed in with a Hall-record 99.32 percent.
"I always laugh at [the] thought last year of Ken Griffey Jr., who probably had the best time ever," Bagwell said. "Probably just hung out in the hot tub and waited to get a phone call. Not quite like that with me."
Modesty aside, Bagwell certainly has a strong case for election.
As one-third of Houston's famed "Killer B's" with Biggio and Lance Berkman, he helped build the Astros from a last-place team to the first one from Texas to reach the World Series in 2005. They were swept by the Chicago White Sox in what would be the last of his six postseason trips.
Bagwell was picked in the fourth round of the 1989 draft by the Boston Red Sox and was traded to Houston for reliever Larry Andersen on Aug. 30, 1990. Bagwell was 22 and a Class AA player at the time of the deal -- in his first two seasons of professional ball, he hit well over .300, but with just 6 home runs in 710 at-bats.
Astros Manager Art Howe moved Bagwell from third base to first base to accommodate Ken Caminiti. Bagwell made his major league debut the following season and found immediate success, becoming the NL Rookie of the Year after hitting .294 with 15 home runs, 26 doubles and 82 RBI.
Bagwell had two more solid seasons before earning the NL MVP in his spectacular 1994 season. In just 110 games during a strike-shortened year, he hit .368 with 39 home runs and a league-leading 116 RBI. His 104 runs scored, .750 slugging percentage and 1.201 OPS that season also led the NL. That season he also earned his only Gold Glove award and picked up the first of three Silver Slugger trophies.
The next year his numbers were down when he hit 21 home runs with 87 RBI. He got back on track in 1996 and hit 31 home runs with 120 RBI in the first of eight consecutive seasons where he had at least 31 home runs.
The first of his three 40-home run seasons came in 1997 when he hit 43 with a career-high 135 RBI and made his first trip to the playoffs. The Astros were eliminated by Atlanta in the National League division series in the first of three consecutive postseason appearances.
He hit 42 home runs in 1999 and had a career-best 47 home runs in 2000. His 152 runs scored that season were the most of his career and gave him the most in the NL for the second consecutive season. Bagwell's last season with more than 30 home runs came at age 35 in 2003 when he hit 39 with 100 RBI.
While he'd love to get into the Hall, Bagwell said he doesn't feel like it's necessary for his career to be complete.
"It's not going to change me," he said. "I'm still going to have to do the same things I do every day. My career is not unfinished. I did the best I could. I played three years, which were very difficult, with my shoulder. I played with so many great people, so much diversity in the people that I played with and all the people that I've met in this game, I can't think of anything better."
Sports on 01/15/2017