Bagwell’s ’94 MVP season part of HOF-worthy career

It was perhaps the best two-thirds of a baseball season we’ve ever seen, and for Jeff Bagwell, it was just a preview of what was to come.

The Baseball Writers’ Association of America will reveal its election results for the Hall of Fame Class of 2017 on Jan. 18, the night when Bagwell — now in his seventh year of eligibility — may receive the biggest phone call of his life. Over the last 50 years, 16 of the last 17 players who gained at least 70 percent of the BBWAA vote (as Bagwell did with 71.6 percent last winter) have been elected in their next year of eligibility, with Jim Bunning — who was later elected by the Veterans’ Committee — being the lone exception.

“This year if I don’t get in, I’ll probably be a little disappointed,” Bagwell said of his Hall of Fame chances in a recent interview with MLB.com, “but before that, more than anything else, I want to hear ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ That’s the bottom line. Get it over with.”

With Bagwell on the doorstep of baseball immortality, it seems poignant to look back on one of his most impressive efforts: A 1994 season that ranks among the single-greatest offensive campaigns in Astros franchise history.

“It was just something special,” Bagwell said of that season. “I really didn’t have any slumps. It was crazy.”

If you took Bagwell’s final numbers in 1994 and prorated them over a full 162-game slate, he would have finished with an incredible 216 hits, 153 runs scored, 57 home runs and 171 RBIs. Over the history of baseball, not a …

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