JAWS and the 2020 Hall of Fame Ballot: Barry Bonds
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2020 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
If Roger Clemens has a reasonable claim as the greatest pitcher of all time, then the same goes for Barry Bonds as the greatest position player. Babe Ruth played in a time before integration, and Ted Williams bridged the pre- and post-integration eras, but while both were dominant at the plate, neither was much to write home about on the base paths or in the field. Bonds’ godfather, Willie Mays, was a big plus in both of those areas, but he didn’t dominate opposing pitchers to the same extent. Bonds used his blend of speed, power, and surgical precision in the strike zone to outdo them all. He set the single-season home run record with 73 in 2001 and the all-time home run record with 762, reached base more often than any player this side of Pete Rose, and won a record seven MVP awards along the way.
Despite his claim to greatness, Bonds may have inspired more fear and loathing than any ballplayer in modern history. Fear because opposing pitchers and managers simply refused to engage him at his peak, intentionally walking him a record 688 times — once with the bases loaded — and giving him a free pass a total of 2,558 times, also a record. Loathing because even as a young player, he rubbed teammates and media the wrong way and approached the game with a chip on his shoulder because of the way his father, three-time All-Star Bobby Bonds, had been driven from the game due to alcoholism. The younger Bonds had his own issues off the field, as allegations of physical and verbal abuse of his domestic partners surfaced during his career.
As he aged, media and fans turned against Bonds once evidence — most of it illegally leaked to the press by anonymous sources — mounted that he had used performance-enhancing drugs during the latter part of his career. With his name in the headlines more regarding his legal situation than his on-field exploits, his pursuit and eclipse of Hank Aaron’s 33-year-old home run record turned into a joyless drag, and he disappeared from the majors soon after breaking the record in 2007 despite ranking among the game’s most dangerous hitters even at age 43. Not until 2014 did he even debut as a spring training guest instructor for the Giants. The reversal of his felony obstruction of justice conviction in April 2015 freed him of legal hassles, and he spent the 2016 season as the Marlins’ hitting coach, though he was dismissed at season’s end.
Bonds is hardly alone among Hall of Fame candidates with links to PEDs. As with Clemens, the support he has received during his first seven election cycles has been far short of unanimous, but significantly stronger than the showings of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmeiro, either in their ballot debuts or since. Debuting at 36.2% in 2013, Bonds spun his wheels for two years before climbing to 44.3% in 2016 and 53.8% in 2017 thanks to a confluence of factors. In the wake of both Bonds and Clemens crossing the historically significant 50% threshold, the Hall — which in 2014 unilaterally truncated candidacies from 15 years to 10 so as to curtail debate over the PED-linked ones — made its strongest statement yet that it would like to avoid honoring them in the form of a plea to voters from vice chairman Joe Morgan not to honor players connected to steroids. The letter was not well received by voters, but in the two cycles since, Bonds has gained just 5.3 percentage points. Like Clemens, he needs to recapture his momentum to have a shot at reaching 75% by the time his eligibility runs out in 2022.
| Player | Career WAR | Peak WAR | JAWS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barry Bonds | 162.8 | 72.7 | 117.8 |
| Avg. HOF LF | 65.5 | 41.6 | 53.6 |
| H | HR | AVG/OBP/SLG | OPS+ |
| 2,935 | 762 | .298/.444/.607 | 182 |
Bonds was born on July 24, 1964 in Riverside, California — like his father — though he grew up further north, in San Carlos. Not surprisingly, he excelled in baseball once he reached high school. The Giants chose him in the second round of the 1982 draft, the same year that his father’s professional career ended with a brief stint for the Yankees’ Triple-A team. The younger Bonds chose not to sign with the Giants and instead headed for Arizona State, where he earned All-American honors, set a College World Series record with seven consecutive hits as a sophomore, and was named to All-Time College World Series Team in 1996; similarly, he was named a starter on the all-time CWS team in 2019.
Bonds was drafted again after his junior year, this time by the Pirates as the sixth pick behind B.J. Surhoff (Brewers), Will Clark (Giants), Bobby Witt (Rangers), Barry Larkin (Reds), and Kurt Brown (White Sox).
Bonds tore up the Class-A Carolina League that year, then spent two months doing the same in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League in 1986 before being called up to make his major league debut on May 30, 1986; he went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts and a walk against the Dodgers. However, on August 11 of that year he appeared in the 17th inning of a suspended game that had begun on April 20, driving in the winning run in what technically stands as his backdated “debut.”
As a 21-year-old, Bonds hit just .223/.330/.416 for the Pirates in 1986 and struck out 102 times, his only season reaching triple digits in that category. Batting leadoff most of the time, he did homer 16 times, steal 36 bases in 43 attempts, walk 65 times in 484 plate appearances, and play above-average defense in center field en route a respectable 3.5 WAR. Shifting to left field to accommodate the arrival of Andy Van Slyke in 1987, Bonds improved to 25 homers, 32 steals, 5.8 WAR, and a .261/.329/.492 line (114 OPS+). His plate discipline, and the respect accorded him by NL pitchers, advanced significantly over the next two years; he drew 14 intentional walks among his 72 overall in 1988 and 22 out of 93 in 1989, though he slumped to 19 homers and a .248 batting average in the latter year.
That winter, the Pirates and Dodgers discussed a trade that would have sent third baseman Jeff Hamilton and reliever John Wetteland to Pittsburgh for Bonds. Pittsburgh reportedly wanted either Tim Belcher or Ramon Martinez instead of Wetteland. “I really got the feeling that [Dodgers general manager] Fred Claire was not going to move one of his established pitchers,” said Pirates GM Larry Doughty at the time.
Bonds stayed in Pittsburgh and broke out in 1990, earning All-Star and Gold Glove honors and hitting .301/.406/.565 — good for a league-high 170 OPS+ — with 33 homers (fourth in the league) and 52 steals (third). The 30–30 feat placed him in select company as one of 13 players to reach that dual milestone; his father had done so five times, joining Mays as one of two other players to that point who had done so twice. Bonds’ slugging percentage and his 9.7 WAR both led the league — his first of four straight years leading in the latter category — and he won his first MVP award in a nearly-unanimous vote where one stray first-place ballot went to teammate Bobby Bonilla. The two killer BBs helped the Pirates go 95–67, winning the National League East for the first time since 1979, though they lost a six-game NLCS to the Reds.
Bonds helped Pittsburgh repeat as NL East champions in each of the next two seasons as well, though the team fell to the Braves in a seven-game NLCS both times. He led the NL with a .410 on-base percentage in 1991 and led in both on-base and slugging percentage in 1992, hitting .311/.456/.624. For the first time, he also led the league in walks, with 127 (32 intentional). It’s tempting to attribute those latter totals to the departure of Bonilla for the Mets in free agency after the 1991 season, but the reality is that manager Jim Leyland batted Bonilla fourth and Bonds fifth (!) for most of the former’s final two years in Pittsburgh (Van Slyke hit third). After horrendous performances in his first two NLCS appearances, Bonds hit .261/.433/.435 with a homer and six walks in the 1992 series, but it wasn’t enough. He did take home his second NL MVP trophy, avenging his loss to the Braves’ Terry Pendleton the year before.
That was the end of Bonds’ time in Pittsburgh. Now 28 years old, he signed a six-year, $43.75 million contract with the Giants, setting records for the largest deal ever (surpassing Cal Ripken‘s $32.5 million) and the highest average annual value (beating Ryne Sandberg’s $7.22 million). Mays offered to un-retire No. 24 for him to wear, but Bonds instead opted for the No. 25 that his father wore as a Giant from 1968-74. He lived up to his new contract with another MVP-winning season in 1993, hitting .336/.458/.677; he led the league in the latter two categories, as well as homers (46), RBIs (123) and intentional walks (43). San Francisco won 103 games but lost out to the 104-win Braves for the NL West flag thanks to a pair of homers by Dodgers rookie Mike Piazza on the final day of the season.
Helped along by more league-leading walk totals, Bonds posted on-base percentages of .426 or better and slugging percentages of .577 or better in each of the next four years, averaging 38 homers per season in spite of the 1994–95 players’ strike; he led the league in WAR in both 1995 and 1996. Only in 1997 — the year second baseman Jeff Kent joined the team — did the Giants reach the playoffs, and they were swept by the Marlins in three games.
Off the field, Bonds went through a divorce from his first wife, Sun Bonds, in 1995. During the trial, Sun alleged at least five episodes of spousal abuse dating back to at least 1988, including being kicked while eight months pregnant. Bonds denied the allegations, which were rarely discussed later in his career. It’s fair to wonder what kind of trajectory his career might have taken if Major League Baseball’s current domestic violence policy had been in place back then; he might well have been suspended, and faced public scorn. This would not be the last time such allegations surfaced.
Bonds hit a fairly typical .303/.438/.609 with 37 homers, 28 steals, and 130 walks in 1998, but his performance was lost amid the McGwire-Sosa home run chase. The story that later emerged from reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams in their book Game of Shadows is that the attention accorded to those two sluggers motivated Bonds to take performance-enhancing drugs to keep up; after that season, he began training with Greg Anderson, a weightlifter and steroid dealer. Amid his intense training regimen, he tore a triceps tendon in his right elbow, costing him seven weeks of the 1999 season, but he still hit 34 homers in just 102 games. He set a career-high with 49 homers in 2000 — second in the league, one short of Sosa’s total — and hit .306/.440/.688, good for 7.7 WAR (third in the league). Playing their first year in Pac Bell Park, the Giants won the NL West but fell to the Mets in the Division Series. Bonds also lost out on the MVP award to Kent, who hit .334/.424/.596 with 34 homers and 7.2 WAR but drove in 125 runs, 19 more than his teammate.
With precise strike zone judgment, a swing that was more compact than ever, and the ability to dig in at the plate (enhanced by a bulky elbow guard), Bonds put up video game numbers in 2001: a .328/.515/.863 line with 73 homers and 177 walks, with those last three marks all setting records. His sixth home run of the year, off the Dodgers’ Terry Adams on April 17, made him the 17th player to reach 500 homers, and it came in a flurry of six consecutive games with a home run. Bonds matched that streak in May, this time hitting nine homers over a six-game stretch. At one point, he hit 38 home runs during a 61-game stretch, a 101-homer pace if projected to 162 games. His 71st blast, off the Dodgers’ Chan Ho Park on October 5, 2001, broke McGwire’s three-year-old record, but it — and his 72nd homer, also off Park — came in the same game in which San Francisco was eliminated from postseason contention.
Still, Bonds became the first four-time MVP in baseball history and kicked off another stretch of four straight years in which he led the league in WAR, finishing the season with a career high 11.9.
Bonds never again reached 50 homers in a season, as managers grew increasingly wary of pitching to him. From 2002-04, he batted a combined .358/.575/.786 — yes, that’s a .575 on-base percentage — averaging 45 homers and 193 walks per year, 83 of them intentional; in 2004, he drew an astounding 232 walks, 120 of them intentional, en route to a .609 on-base percentage, all records. He took home MVP honors in each of those years, running his total to seven.
On August 9, 2002, Bonds hit his 600th homer off the Pirates’ Kip Wells, joining Ruth, Mays, and Aaron on that select plateau. He reached the World Series for the first time that year and hit .471/.700/1.294 with four homers and 13 walks in a losing cause against the Angels. The last of those homers came in the sixth inning of Game 6 and gave the Giants a 4-0 lead and a shot at their first championship since 1954. In the eighth inning, however, his misplay of a bloop by Garret Anderson abetted a decisive rally that evened the series, with the Giants losing Game 7.
Bonds passed Mays with his 661st homer off Milwaukee’s Ben Ford on April 13, 2004, and he hit No. 700 off San Diego’s Jake Peavy on September 17. Even at 40, it was apparent that he still had enough ability to surpass Aaron’s mark of 755 home runs. But by that point, he also had plenty of heat on him. In September 2003, Bonds’ name surfaced as one of six major league players and 21 other athletes connected to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which was at the center of a doping scandal involving previously undetectable steroids. In December, Bonds testified in front of a grand jury that he had received two such steroids, “the Clear” and “the Cream,” from Anderson during the 2003 season but said that he had been told that they were flaxseed oil and a rubbing balm for arthritis. When confronted with documents — including lab test results, schedules of use and billing information — allegedly detailing his steroid regimen from 2001-03, he claimed to have no knowledge that any substance he had ingested was illegal. All of this information was supposed to remain under court seal, but it was leaked to the media illegally.
An entire cottage industry devoted to covering the BALCO scandal sprang up, and the case dragged on for years. Meanwhile, Major League Baseball began cracking down on performance-enhancing drug use by instituting testing and suspensions. Bonds’ involvement in BALCO led the House of Representatives’ Government Reform Committee to omit him from its list of players and executives they called to testify in March 2005; committee leaders feared his presence would overshadow the proceedings.
Bonds had other problems by then. After undergoing a minor cleanup on his left knee in October 2004, he had surgery on his right knee in January ’05, then suffered new tears in the menisci in that same knee, requiring yet another surgery on March 17, the same day as the hearings. He needed a third surgery in May to clean out an infection and didn’t return to the Giants until September 12; he homered five times in 14 games, running his career total to 708. With routine days off incorporated into his schedule, he hit .270/.454/.545 with 26 homers and a league-leading 115 walks in 130 games in 2006. During spring training, lengthy excerpts from Game of Shadows were published in the San Francisco Chronicle and Sports Illustrated, detailing Bonds’ alleged steroid use and relationship with BALCO and dampening enthusiasm for the barrage of milestones that would follow. In that same issue, SI’s Tom Verducci wrote:
Delivered with the blunt force of a sledgehammer, Game of Shadows is to Barry Bonds what the Dowd Report was to Pete Rose in 1989—it destroys the reputation of one of baseball’s most accomplished players. Whether Bonds never hits another home run or hits 48 more, which would give him the most of all time, he never can be regarded with honor or full legitimacy. Shadows painstakingly catalogs him as a serial drug cheat, and thus the eye-popping stats that he has accrued stand all too literally as too good to be true.
Bonds soldiered on nonetheless. His May 28 homer off Colorado’s Byung-Hyun Kim, the 715th of his career, pushed him past Ruth, and he finished the year with 734 homers, setting him up for his final push toward Aaron’s total the following year. No. 755 came against the Padres’ Clay Hensley in San Diego on August 4, 2007, snapping a six-game homerless drought full of live TV cut-ins to virtually every one of his plate appearances and landing him on the cover of SI, making no reference to the attendant controversy in its caption: “History: Barry Bonds Hits Home Run No. 755.”
No. 756 finally came in San Francisco against Washington’s Mike Bacsik on August 7.
Bonds’ 28 homers brought his career total to 762, and while he had hit .276/.480/.565 (leading the league again in on-base percentage), the Giants decided that the 43-year-old free agent was too expensive and too much trouble to keep. Despite his desire to continue playing, the rest of the industry shunned him — perhaps colluding to do so, though in 2015 Bonds finally lost a suit against MLB alleging that — at least in part because a federal grand jury indictment on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in November 2007; Bonds pleaded not guilty in December. Flaws in the drafting of the indictment led to three more rounds of indictments and not-guilty pleas, the last of them in March 2011. His trial began on March 21 of that year, and he was found guilty on one count of obstruction of justice for giving an evasive answer when asked if Anderson had given him anything that required him to inject himself. The judge declared a mistrial on three remaining counts of making false statements to the grand jury.
During Bonds’ perjury trial, his girlfriend from 1994 to 2003, Kimberly Bell, testified in graphic detail about the physical and emotional changes she observed in him during the course of their relationship, which she attributed to his PED usage. Furthermore, she alleged that she was the recipient of his repeated verbal abuse and threats of violence.
Bonds’ legal issues lingered. His conviction was upheld by a federal appeals court in September 2013; he began serving his 30 days of house arrest and two years of probation even while continuing to appeal. In September 2014, an 11-judge panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals expressed skepticism regarding the prosecution’s case. “I don’t see how there’s sufficient evidence (of obstruction) when the same question was re-asked immediately and answered repeatedly,” said Judge Susan Graber, who was on the panel.
The 9th Circuit finally overturned the conviction in April 2015 by a 10–1 vote. It’s estimated that the government spent at least $50 million of taxpayer money to investigate BALCO, using a prosecution whose misconduct with regard to due process and the right to privacy was far more odious than any of Bonds’ sins.
…
The legal morass aside, Bonds’ numbers make a case for him as the greatest position player of all time. He holds the records for homers and walks, and ranks second in times on base (5,599) and extra-base hits (1,440), third in runs scored (2,227), fourth in RBIs (1,996) and total bases (5,976), and a still-impressive 34th in steals (514). In addition to his seven MVP awards, he made 14 All-Star teams. Among batters with at least 7,000 plate appearances, his .444 on-base percentage ranks fifth all-time behind Williams, Ruth, Slidin’ Billy Hamilton, and Lou Gehrig, and his .607 slugging percentage fifth behind Ruth, Williams, Gehrig, and Jimmie Foxx. His 182 OPS+ ranks third behind Ruth (206) and Williams (190).
Thanks to his abilities on the base paths and in the field, Bonds’ 162.8 WAR is not only tops among left fielders but is also higher than any player besides Ruth (162.1 as a hitter and another 20.3 as a pitcher), Walter Johnson (164.3), and Cy Young (163.6). Bonds’ career WAR outdistances that of Williams, the second-ranked left fielder, by a whopping 39.7 wins (a gap that owes plenty to the Spendid Splinter’s military service) and his 72.7 peak WAR outdoes Williams by 3.5 wins.
The extent to which Bonds’ numbers owe something to PED use is unknowable, but whether he’ll get into the Hall of Fame has more to do with how the voters view his relationship to the drugs. In the eyes of many voters, Bonds and every other PED user is a cheater, beyond redemption in the context of recognizing the game’s greats. As I outlined when I undertook this series in 2012 at SI.com, and at greater length in the books Extra Innings and The Cooperstown Casebook, I take a more nuanced view. I believe that voters should distinguish between PED use that came during baseball’s “Wild West” era — when it took a complete institutional failure on the part of the players’ union, team owners, the commissioner, and the media to prevent a coherent drug policy from being implemented — and use that came after testing began in 2004 (though the first penalties weren’t imposed until ’05). From what we know, Bonds’ usage occurred in the context of many other dopers, pitchers as well as hitters. He is a none-too-flattering reflection of the era in which he played. Even so, he’s no Lance Armstrong or Ryan Braun, PED users who intimidated or smeared those who gave evidence against them.
If you want to play the “He was a Hall of Famer before he touched the stuff” game, consider only what Bonds did through 1998: His 411 homers, 1,917 hits, 445 steals and .290/.411/.556 line were good for 99.9 career WAR (which would rank third among left fielders), 62.6 peak WAR (second), and 81.3 JAWS (third behind Williams and Rickey Henderson). That’s still a Hall of Famer.
Bonds didn’t come close to election on his first ballot in 2013, as eight other candidates — including first-timers Clemens, Piazza, Craig Biggio, and Curt Schilling — received a higher share of the vote than his 36.2%. Nine candidates topped both his 34.2% in 2014 and his 36.8% in 2015. Like Clemens, he jumped in 2016, coming in at 44.3% (for some reason, he got four fewer votes than the Rocket thanks a few expert hair-splitters). That gain appeared to owe to two factors: a softening of attitudes from among returning voters, and the Hall’s decision to take away the vote from writers more than 10 years removed from covering baseball.
Using Ryan Thibodaux’s great Ballot Tracker, we can illustrate these trends:
| Vote | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | 202 | 195 (-7) | 238 (+43) | 238 (0) | 251 (+13) |
| No | 347 | 245 (-102) | 204 (-41) | 184 (-20) | 174 (-10) |
| % | 36.8% | 44.3% (+7.5%) | 53.8% (+8.5%) | 56.4% (+2.6%) | 59.1% (+2.7%) |
While Bonds’ 2016 vote total dropped by seven relative to the year before, the number of voters dropped by 109 (from 549 to 440); according to BBWAA secretary/treasurer Jack O’Connell, the number of voters purged by the rule change was 90, so the rest of the attrition owed to other reasons (at least five 2015 voters passed away, for example). The net loss of 102 “no” votes was huge, because each of those requires three “yes” votes to offset to reach 75%.
In 2017, a new force came into play. The election of Bud Selig by the Today’s Game Era Committee ballot quickly triggered some reconsideration from voters; anointing the commissioner who oversaw the proliferation of PEDs while keeping those who used outside felt like a double standard. By their reasoning, if the black marks against the former commissioner (which also included his involvement in the late-1980s collusion scandal) weren’t enough for the Today’s Game voters to withhold their votes while citing the “character, integrity, sportsmanship” requirements, then the same should be true for the BBWAA voters. Said past BBWAA president Susan Slusser on Twitter, “Senseless to keep steroid guys out when the enablers are in Hall of Fame. I now will hold my nose and vote for players I believe cheated.” Wrote NY Sports Today’s Wallace Matthews, “If Bud Selig’s in the Hall of Fame, anything goes. Open the doors and let ’em in.”
With Bonds and Clemens climbing past 50% — historically such a strong indicator of future election that only one player currently not on a ballot, Gil Hodges, has surpassed it without election — in 2017, the Hall decided to put its thumb on the scale in the form of Morgan’s letter to voters, sent the day after the 2018 ballots were mailed. Among other things, Morgan’s belated, simplistic, and disingenuous plea ignored baseball’s long history of amphetamine abuse — and amphetamines are most definitely PEDs, illegal without a prescription since 1970 — and the presence of such users in the Hall of Fame. So much for Hall president Jeff Idelson’s 2011 declaration that “the chips will fall as they fall” when it comes to voting for candidates in light of the character clause.
(Here it’s worth remembering that the so-called “character clause” — Rule 5 for BBWAA voters, which reads, “Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played” — was introduced in 1944 by Hall founder Stephen Clark and Commissioner Kenesaw Landis, a man so brimming with integrity, sportsmanship, and character that he spent his 24-year tenure upholding the game’s color line.)
While Bonds has added support in each of the two cycles since Morgan’s letter, those gains have been much smaller, as you can see in the table above. His net total of “yes” votes was actually unchanged from 2017 to ’18, though he did get some movement in 2019. Nonetheless, between the efforts of Morgan and the Hall’s 2017 decision not to accept a BBWAA resolution to publish every ballot (two weeks after the election results were announced), it’s apparent that the institution will find ways to give cover to those voters who reject Bonds but won’t publish their ballots. According to the Ballot Tracker, 84.0% of 2019 voters published their ballots either before or after the election results were announced; they supported Bonds and Clemens at a 62.2% clip. By comparison, the 16.0% of voters who did not publish gave Bonds just 42.6% support (and Clemens 45.6%).
Whatever hope remains for both may depend upon the turnover of the electorate. Notably, over the past three election cycles, 32 out of 38 first-time voters have included Bonds (33 of 38 for Clemens); meanwhile the net total of votes shrank by 15 in that span, as voters at least 10 years removed from coverage were removed from the rolls. While both trends figure to continue, and the first waves of internet-based writers get the vote (this scribe included, in 2021) and the ranks of those who covered their careers and feel personally misled continue to dwindle, last year’s addition of just 10 newcomers was the smallest of those three years, suggesting those trends alone probably won’t be enough to get the pair to 75% by 2022. Additional minds will need to be changed along the way, but many voters have dug in their heels. A post-2019 election survey by ESPN’s Jeff Passan, who asked 60 voters who left both off their ballots whether they might ever change their minds, received just 18 responses, of which 15 said no. Whether or not that group constitutes a representative sample of the electorate is an open question, but if it is, the math doesn’t look great given the slow turnover rate of the electorate. It isn’t clear what the role the allegations of abuse against Bonds might be playing in stalling his support (and it likely isn’t significant), though there certainly seems to be a renewed awareness of them as a taint on his candidacy.
If it comes to pass, the election of Bonds won’t please everybody, but the Hall of Fame has never been a church. If it can withstand Selig, if a museum dedicated to telling the story of the sport can withstand the segregationists, amphetamine users and other miscreants, it can surely withstand the entry of Barry Lamar Bonds, all-time home run leader.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
“he’s no Lance Armstrong or Ryan Braun”
Or, for that matter, Roger Clemens.
I mean, he may not have been a Lance Armstrong or a Ryan Braun, but he was considered one of the biggest jerks in baseball.
I remember hearing a story about his minor league days. One of his teammates or coaches was nice enough to let Bonds live in his house. But Bonds was such an a-hole that the guy moved out of his own house to get away from Barry.
What’s odd is that everyone seemed to rave about his dad. So I’ve never understood why Barry was the way he was…
His own college teammates also voted to have him off the starting roster once due to how poor of a sport he was, even though he was their best player by a long shot.
He and Kevin brown should open a rival ball of fame for bad mannered players. Kevin Mitchell and Ty Cobb Could be inductees. Maybe ted Williams. In the front office section they could taubmann in
FWIW– I went to one Mets game at Pac Bell Park (in 2000) and I had great seats in the lower level in left field and given his reputation I was surprised how friendly he was with the fans.
Between innings, he went out of his way to hand practice balls to kids in the section, seemed happy to trade a few words or a handshake. I imagine if it was 15 years later, it would have been lots of selfies.
Maybe this wasn’t the norm and I just caught him on a good day.
Not sure how he acted in passing encounters with fans really says much about how someone is as a person. You can genuinely enjoy interacting with fans and still be an unlikable ahole in social situations.
People are complicated.
He’s just #akidfromAkron #striveforgreatness
Oh wait, wrong steroid using athlete…
FYI, this is what we in the biz call “libel.” You’re obviously far too unimportant to bother suing, but you probably shouldn’t make a habit of this kind of thing.
Calm down, dude. some random comment on a relatively niche website would not meet the standards for libel on a public figure. lol.
Sure it does. Publication just requires that it be written in a tangible medium. There have been literally thousands of libel judgments for statements published on the Internet.
It’s not just amphetamines – steroids were so prevalent in the game pre-Canseco that Congress intervened in 1973. Tom House, who caught Aaron’s record-breaking home run in the Atlanta bullpen, is on the record saying that at least half of all players were using steroids in 1970. We also know that Mickey Mantle used steroids, and that Hall of Famers Ruth and Pud Galvin made us of animal testosterone extracts during their careers.
Frank Thomas was a two sport player at Auburn and a legitimate football Tight End prospect, and he’s said that one reason why he chose MLB over the NFL was because the NFL had a much bigger steroid problem. I think most of the general public is pretty unaware how prevalent steroids have been in all professional sports.
What’s the source for Mantle using steroids during his playing career?
Mantle has admitted a few times to getting blowjobs under the bleachers. That’s not a steroid but is a pretty big performance enhancer.
Eh, it gives ya weak legs!
Last time I tried to post a link here it got blocked, but if you google Mantle steroids you’ll be able to find it pretty easily. Basically, he was a longtime “patient” of Max “Dr. Feelgood” Jacobson, known for his ministrations to JFK, Liz Taylor, and a host of other celebrities of that era. He basically charged rich people a small fortune to shoot them up with a cocktail of amphetamines, steroids, vitamins, and other chemicals, claiming that they provided an energy boost and sped tissue regeneration. When Mantle went on the DL in the middle of the ’61 home run chase it was due to an infected injection site from one of Jacobson’s steroid shots.
This is not really accurate . By all accounts Mantle saw Jacobson only once and didnt even know who he was or what he did.
The actual story was that Mantle was not feeling well so on a flight home Mel Allen (who was a patient/believer of Jacobsen) told Mantle to go see Jacobsen. Mantle showed up and Jacobsen injected him with something (Mantle said he didnt even know what it was) and it wound up getting massively infected.
To characterize him as a “long time patient” or imply Mantle was a habitual steroid abuser is extremely dubious, to say the least.
Not to mention that even if he did take steroids (again, there is not really any proof he did) they would have done virtually nothing for him due to his legendary lack of giving a damn about staying in shape or even being sober lol. Steroids work, but they are not magic. You cant just take a shot, go out drinking all night and wake up ripped in the morning.
That Tom house story is rubbish
Ask yourself what’s more likely – that Tom House made that shit up, and Congress reached the same conclusion in 1973, or that the players who to this day deny even knowing what steroids were are lying to protect themselves? We know for an absolute fact that the NFL was roided to the gills in the 70s, do you really think that NFL and MLB players weren’t talking to each other back then?
Steroids have been a significant part of baseball for far longer than anyone appears willing to admit. They weren’t invented by Jose Canseco in 1987.
The best player almost anyone living has ever seen play (sans possibly Clemens, Trout in a decade); it would take a truly sad trombone to decry him.
Also the all time most fun Baseball Reference page to look at, baseball is a game of failure; unless you’re Bonds and have a .609 OBP.
Hold on a sec.
You can make images?
What about a sad tuba? Or a sad clarinet? Or a sad piccolo?
Rob Picciolo now has a sad thanks to this subthread.
What about Sam Horn?
Frank Viola
Kevin Bass reportedly still in good spirits. No word from Stephen Fife, Brad Cornett, Tim “Snare” Drummond, Steve Sax”ophone”, Harmon”ica” Killebrew, or Scott Kaz”oo”-zmir.
The guy got on base more than he had actual ABs. The steroid political discussion is tiring when talking about his HOF candidacy, this is not a borderline player he is baseball god.
It’s a well-written article, and there’s no doubt that Bonds’ on the field performance was extraordinary and certainly inner circle. I can also understand why Jay makes a distinction between the “Wild West” era, which was certainly given tacit approval by Bud Selig and management in general. Putting fannies in seats is clearly a business judgment. All that being said, I wouldn’t vote yes for any serial user, and while the prosecution of Bonds was over the top, and MLB hypocritical, my feeling about his PED-related conduct is that it’s just too much for me. It’s really striking how baseball has once again become a younger player’s game since rampant use of PEDS has abated. How much that impacted Bonds stats, I have no idea, and while agree he would have been an HOF without them, i think he has to live with his choices. If the voters put him in, so be it. It won’t be their best day, and, given some of the questionable choices of the past, may not be their worst either.
Great piece. A modest edit, add at the end: “and the sport’s greatest hitter.” BTW, if “baseball” continues to punish Bonds, Clemens and the “others,” with exclusion from the HOF and/or asterisks, shouldn’t Boston’s ’07 WS title be similarly qualified?
I don’t understand how some voters vote for Bonds or Clemens, but not both.
Personally, I don’t understand how 99% of the voters vote….
In the post purge area it’s about 65-70% of ballots that are within the realm of reason and the remaining 30-35% are varying degrees of questionable; remains to be seen how many are as dumb as the Jeter only voters.
Also this year’s ballot instead of having 15+ viable candidates now has 9-11 or so, thus not voting for 10 is defensible.
What if the person judges there are not 10 candidates who worthy of the Hall of Fame? It’s literally just your opinion.
So theoretically there’s a small hall argument but the people who make that argument tend to not vote for Bonds and Clemens, i.e. the best pitcher of all time and the 2nd-5th best player overall. What’s the point of the hall of fame if Harold Baines is in there and Bonds and Clemens aren’t? If you find a voter who votes for Bonds/Clemens/Jeter/Schilling/Manny/Walker and that’s it then maybe he’s got an argument that is interesting to listen to (there’s three on the tracker in that crowd so far, I guess I mostly just have misgivings that they wouldn’t vote for all 6).
Of course Rolen is on par with Jeter/Manny/Walker by most measurements, but he’s too early in his candidacy or something? Those cases (“I’m waiting for their final time on the ballot”) seem to just be grandstanding to me.
I know of at least one (non-voting yet) writer who takes issue with Clemens’ relationship with Mindy McReady.
As for the current crop of voters, I’m pretty sure I do know exactly what their reasoning is, even if they won’t admit it.
A couple of thoughts I’d throw out there… not saying that I buy any of them (so don’t down vote me!)
– Bonds was convicted of obstruction of justice, although that was later rescinded.
– Bonds has been accused of domestic violence
– Bonds did admit to using PEDs, albeit unknowingly
– Good ole’ fashioned racism
– Clemens may have had relations with a minor
– Clemens’ denial was in front of Congress – which ups things up a notch
– Whereas Bonds still has supporters in San Fran… basically no one likes Roger Clemens.
It’s also possible, with the stacked ballot, that some voters wanted to give precedence to the “clean” players and then revisit with the “tainted” ones… Maybe the voters had nine “clean” players and flipped a coin b/w Bonds & Clemens.
I wouldn’t vote for either one of them personally, but there’s another point you’re missing — wholly and entirely apart from racism, a lot of people got offended by the extent to which Bonds broke baseball and so hold his steroid use against him more than they do for Clemens. Clemens and Bonds were pretty comparable in terms of dominance pre-steroids, but Clemens’ steroid use basically just served to extend his career as a good-to-great starter, while Bonds’ steroid use allowed him to jump to levels that nobody had ever seen before, and a lot of people took umbrage with that. Post-steroids Bonds put up slugging percentages 200 points higher than pre-steroids Bonds had, and a lot of people really, really, really disliked watching Bonds get up there and walk 200 times a season because his steroid use had made pitchers too terrified to pitch to him.
On the list of “bad things done by both players,” Clemens’ sleeping with a teenager and suing his trainer for truthfully talking about his steroid use, along with Bonds’ domestic violence, rank far, far ahead of anything related to their steroid use. But strictly limited to the steroid issue, it’s clear that Bonds’ performance was effected by it to a much greater extent than Clemens’ was, and a lot of people take issue with that.
I’m not saying any of those off field things like domestic violence are good, but aside from PED related issues I don’t think that it should affect hall candidacy
“Bonds’ steroid use allowed him to jump to levels that nobody had ever seen before.”
There is, literally, no evidence that this is true. As Jay points out, we have no idea how good Bonds unjuiced would have been. The juice didn’t help his eye, or his timing, or his pitch recognition. His bat speed owed as much to choking way up* as it did to muscle mass. He wasn’t squeaking marginal HR just over the fences; he was blasting bombs and lacing line drives all over the place.
Frankly, there is very little evidence that steroids increase peak performance anyway. There’s lots of evidence that they speed up recovery and increase longevity, but they don’t make you good, much less great. Check out the list of players who’ve been caught using steroids, and note how many of them still sucked.
If you’re going to say that Bonds shouldn’t get it, it has to be on grounds other than how much worse he would have been without steroids.
*I still do not understand why dozens of players haven’t copied this part of Bonds’s approach. It clearly was a big part of his success, and yet nobody does it.
I guess it has to do judging their career before steroids, Bonds was more HOF worthy. I dont agree with it, I think they both were before roids, with roids, and after roids.
If you vote for one player that took PED’s, you should vote for all of them
The forthcoming first ballot election of David Ortiz’s Narrative Prowess demands Bonds and Clemens’ elections.
Besides Ortiz’ history of Big Game Moments, I’ve also wondered how ARod’s efforts to rehabilitate his image and integrate himself into the meta-baseball “family” – efforts Bonds and Clemens have not made anywhere near as much – will make any difference or not when it’s ARod’s time to be voted on.
I think the general consensus on A-Rod is that by the 10th year he’s on the ballot the electorate will have changed enough to get him in even if Bonds and Clemens don’t get voted in; first ballot presumably not happening though.
If A-Rod gets in Bonds and Clemens will through a committee. And if Bonds or Clemens get in on the ballot A-Rod will first ballot.
Unlike Bonds or Clemens, post-career ARod seems like somebody you wouldn’t mind having dinner with, but the shenanigans surrounding his steroid situation are so egregious that I don’t think anybody will be forgetting them any time soon. Also journalists / BBWAA voters don’t forget that painting of him as a centaur and the photo shoot where he’s kissing himself.
Bonds and Clemens have three more years. The past two years, they got bumps of about 2.5%, from what is probably the older voters getting purged being more anti-BB/RC than the newer voters getting their votes for the first time. If we continue that pattern, that puts them at 67-68% in their final year.
Can they make up the 7-8% from other places? I imagine there won’t be any rule changes that benefit them – to many people in the Hall opposed to their induction. They probably will benefit at least a bit from the standard year 10 bump, as there are likely some voters who are refusing to vote for them until year 10. One thing that might help is the David Ortiz hits the ballot – he’s popular, particularly with the old school writers less inclined to support BB/RC. Perhaps some of those voters will recognize the hypocracy of voting for Ortiz but not Bonds and Clemens. Of course, it would be a lot more helpful if Ortiz debuted in 2021 and there was a year to reflect on it.
It’s going to be close. It is very possible they end up single digits from the 75% mark, either way in 2022.
I wouldn’t be surprised by a large Year 10 bump for those two.
He shouldn’t have taken steroids at all. He was already a five tool player on a great pace but he decided he just wanted homers. Sure, he was still good after, but he might’ve overall been more valuable had he stayed the player he was.
“He might have been more valuable overall” It doesnt get more valuable than 73 homers and 200 walks
I’ve gone back and forth on the PEDs issue but at the end of the day decided that I don’t care.
Seems like the biggest complaint is that they’re “unnatural and enhance performance”. To which I would say the following. We accept lots of things that are unnatural and enhance performance. If someone has poor vision and wears glasses or contacts or gets LASIK surgery, isn’t that unnatural as well? And a performance enhancer? Or better yet, how about Tommy John surgery? That’s as unnatural as it comes. And it’s a hell of a performance enhancer since the pitcher’s career is over without it. Beyond that, so what if they enhance performance? Don’t we want to see athletes maximize their performance? And they’re hardly magic pills. You can give me all the PEDs in the world and I’ll never be able to a 90 MPH fastball. Or 80 miles. Or 70 miles. Honestly, what is this weird reaction that we have towards certain types of drugs just because they’ve been given a label with a negative connotation?
Of course we also hear “they’re dangerous and illegal”. To which I would respond….where’s the evidence that they’re dangerous? Most of these drugs have never been properly tested. And as for them being illegal, what’s legal and illegal changes all the time. Beer was legal, then it was illegal, now it’s legal again. (should we ban anyone who drank beer during Prohibition since it was also illegal?).
Finally, there’s the “baseball has banned them” argument, Of course, that’s mostly because (IMO) they bought into the first two arguments. And while I’m no libertarian, I don’t think baseball or the government should be telling grown men what they can or can’t put into their bodies.
Anyway, I’m sure some people will agree with me and others will disagree. But I think we’ve turned PEDs into some sort of monster that they’re not. Heck, the term PEDs isn’t even an accurate moniker since it includes a wide range of drugs, many of which have never been properly tested for their effects on performance.
Vision and TJ surgery are weak examples. Getting a LASIK procedure/glasses/contacts is a health issue and reverts poor vision back to normal — it does not increase vision beyond what is naturally possible like 40/20 vision. Same with Tommy John surgery. They are corrective procedures so that a player may function as normal (or as close to that as possible, only a handful of pitchers have been better after TJ surgery) not performance enhancing. PEDs/anabolic steroids are banned because they significantly improve muscle recovery, weight training, and muscle mass beyond what is capable from a difficult workout regimen and/or eating healthy/nutritious diet.
I think the LASIK example is actually very good.
Baseball hitters have excellent vision – and you need that visual acuity in order to see recognise the pitch. (Have there been any academic studies on this? One website says that baseball hitters need 20/12 vision, so can see at 20 feet what the average person would see at 12 – but since this is advertising things to improve your vision, I’d take that with a big pinch of salt). So I’d imagine the procedure wouldn’t be performed on hitters with poor eyesight for the average population – but to go from good to great.
Are PEDs banned because they are more effective than just training – in which case LASIK should be limited as it is improving your eyesight beyond what you can do with training and diet? Some PEDs can have serious health effects – EPO is thought to be responsible for two Dutch cyclists dying in 1989 and 1990 – and I think that is a reason why some PEDs are banned.
LASIK is not a good example. You’re right baseball players have excellent vision already and typically are not candidates to have that procedure in the first place. And you are right, many PEDs have serious negative health affects such as high blood pressure, sterility, and increased risk for stroke when used chronically. Unless you have a real health problem that can be alleviated by steroid medication or related you shouldn’t be using them period.
But how many baseball players would have LASIK surgery for a real, clinical reason instead of trying to improve their performance?
If there was a pill that improved your eyesight just as much as LASIK surgery, with no negative health impact, should that be allowed?
The only reason is clinical. It’s to correct myopia, hyperopia, or astigmatism. You have to have an evaluation before the surgery to see if it’s even necessary because there are risks. Vision is tied to performance but again LASIK is just going to give you normal vision again.
Its absolutely not a good example. Comparing PED’s to Lasik is so absurd that to call it laughable is almost an understatement.
One is a necessary medical procedure to correct, not improve, a natural defect. The other is pumping yourself full of synthesized chemicals with the explicit purpose that you can surpass your natural capacities as a human being.
If you apply that same logic you are arguing that Carlos Carrasco is cheating because he chose not to die from cancer.
Lasik is absolutely not a necessary medical procedure, since vision can be corrected with glasses, without the risks (minuscule, admittedly) of eye surgery.
That’s the reason that Lasik is considered elective surgery and why most insurance does not cover it.
This is the best response I’ve read about the steroids morass relative to MLB’s history.
I agree for the most part. I’ve heard estimates that 30% of mlb players are using Vyvanse or Adderall today legally, so there is another new issue. Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s better/worse.
Lars just wrote an article for The Athletic about taking Adderall before a game (in Japanese indie ball).
Apparently, it’s very exhaustive to get a medical exemption from MLB.
I dont think that is an overly accurate statement. Most guys are/were still taking the same stuff the people have been taking for decades because it work and we know exactly what it does. Sure there might be some guy taking who the hell knows what, but most of the guys who have been caught were taking pretty well known stuff.
Braun, Grandal, Melky, Colon, ARod were all taking testosterone.
Palmerio, Rollins, Ervin Santana, Mejia, Polanco, Beckham were taking Stanozolol
Freddy Galvis and Dee Gordon were taking Clostebol
Raul A Mondesi was taking clenbuterol
Colabello and like 5 other guys were taking Turinabol
Even stuff that is supposedly “new” is often just the same old stuff. Ben Johnson was told by his guy that he was taking this new, undetectable drug. It turned out to be just plain old Furazabol.
With all due respect, the biggest takeaway I have from your post is that you are rather poorly informed on the topic of PED’s.
“Most guys are/were still taking the same stuff the people have been taking for decades because it work and we know exactly what it does.”
We know what it does to bodies. We do not know what it does to baseball performance. No, really — we don’t. At all. Some people speculate, and present that as knowledge, but it isn’t.
Aleluyah, Amen.
Clearly a steroid user, and as you can see once we apply the standard -65 WAR adjustment to account for that, all that remains is
lmao I stand with this comment even if nobody else will
It occurs to me that the three best players on the ballot this year- Bonds, Clemens and Schilling- share something. They are all unlikable. It’s not as though Derek Jeter is a shining example of humanity, but it might be that his extreme support (on 100% of ballots so far and with 2 only-Jeter ballots) partially results from dislike for the players who were better than him on the ballot.
The main difference is that Schilling became more unlikable after his career, while Bonds/Clemens were seen as 80-grade a-holes from the jump.
Curt Schilling was actually probably my least favorite player while he was active. Honestly, the fact that there is clearly something so very wrong with him has had me at times question some of my conservative political beliefs.
That said, I’d put him in the hall for what he did between the chalk lines. His JAWS is higher than those of Glavine, Nolan Ryan, Jim Palmer, Carl Hubbell, Bob Feller, Marischal, Drysdale and Kofax, and 25+ more HoF SPs.
FWIW, it could be the Giants homer in me, but it seems to me that Bonds’ is genuinely more chill, friendly, and open than he was in his playing days.
So, Bonds was a six-tool player?
Sure Schilling became even more unlikable after his career, but he was also completely insufferable during his career. He’s always been a massive douche, he just somehow manages to keep out-douching himself.
Jeter certainly benefits from the afterglow of being the NY media’s anointed one. Imagine how different A-Rod’s legacy might be if he and Jeter simply swapped NY Post headlines.
A-Rod also got popped for PEDs, very publicly.
These guys won’t get in for a long time – probably after death. I don’t see the vets committees over-looking this. Those players won’t want to be letting these guys in either. It’s not like they are Blyleven or Whitaker. It’s obvious they have the stats so the only way they go in is if the players turn a blind eye and I bet Morgan makes sure they don’t
I loved Joe Morgan the player, but Joe Morgan the person is a sanctimonious prick.
And thus we have the current times: being a cheater is not a big deal, but you better not be a “sanctimonious prick.”
Bonds was the greatest player any of us have ever seen and likely will ever see. The karaoke bars fell silent every he came to the plate, other games would cut away to the Giants for his at bats, even Dodgers fans would risk being stuck in traffic if Bonds was due up 4th in the 9th. If you want to mention all the controversy on his plaque or exhibit, fine, but put him in already.
Mike Trout?
I voted for Bonds on my pretend ballot, but I find his case to be about as boring as a topic could be (Same for Roger). You either think his steroids are disqualifying (or maybe the abuse allegations) or you don’t. There’s really nothing else to it.
Thank you for this article (I was one of the people who posted in the Schilling article that both Bonds and Clemens’ disgraceful non-baseball activities should be brought front and centre, as Schilling’s are).
No argument on him as a player. I just wish the BBWAA were keeping him out for a good reason, but they’re all sudden moralists on the subject of steroids, even the writers who for some reason or other never mentioned PEDs at the time.
Probably those writers have re-assessed and concluded it was a big deal in much the same way other hall of fame cases are being brought forward due to WAR and OBP. The world is not a static place
Someone mentioned lasik above. A small percentage of people (mostly women) commit suicide after lasik gone bad leaves them with incredible pain – I wouldn’t touch that surgery with a ten foot pole but millions have had it thinking it’s a zero risk procedure. We learn more as time goes on
Mortimer, writers at the time did raise the issue of steroids, but risked losing access or public respect. The articles just aren’t as memorable as the statistics and videos.
Can’t stand Schilling, but his personality should not keep him out if he otherwise belongs. Ty Cobb is the example of a deserving player but undeserving person. Like Cobb, Schilling should get in if his performance merits it.
Bonds and Clemens, however, warped the game and the record book. Their misbehavior, unlike Schilling, cascaded through the game, changing the results and actions of countless other players. Their comparison is to Joe Jackson. Like Jackson, there is some misbehavior that has such a negative effect on the game that no rationalization overcomes it. Their performance may be worthy, even in the fantasy world of “what if they hadn’t cheated,” but in the real world they did cheat and their cheating was so damaging to the game that they should not be put into the Hall of Fame.
There’s an order of magnitude difference in impact to the integrity of the game between cheating to try to help your team to win – which thousands of MLB players throughout history have done in myriad different ways – and cheating to throw games and have your team lose – like Joe Jackson did and Pete Rose probably did. The former is bad and a problem, but the latter nukes the whole idea of a baseball game.
BTW, Joe Jackson wasn’t suspended for throwing games. There was plenty of evidence that he wasn’t throwing games, including his .956 WS OPS and his Series-leading WPA. Instead, even though he played well, his agreement to join his teammates in colluding with gamblers and his decision not to rat them out caused him to be suspended for damaging the integrity of the game.
There are some interesting dichotomies of views where some people are blasé about the major impacts of PEDS on results but want to string up Luhnow for life. Both are really subsets of the broader issue of illicit cheating ( as opposed to agreed forms of cheating )
Sign stealing by players on the field = greenies in the coffee urn
Electronic sign stealing = getting jabs in the butt of some PED
I’d firmly place “getting jabs in the butt of some PED pre-2006” alongside greenies in coffee, and as far less egregious than what the Astros did in 2017 (particularly after the Red Sox got popped).
You make is sound as though Bonds and Clemens were the only players taking steroids (assuming they were. I don’t think there has ever been anything proven on Clemens). They weren’t. There were competing against large numbers of steroid users, both pitchers and hitters. The only difference is that Bonds and Clemens were already unworldly good.
“Other kids are doing it” stopped being a good excuse by kindergarten. Cheating by being smarter, e.g., sign stealing by Paul Molitor, is fair; taking drugs, like Lance Armstrong and Ken Caminiti, is not. Other players either had to also take drugs to compete or find another career. Players who may have been superstars in a clean competitive environment were instead just good players, with similarly reduced income and records. The new rationalizations of Bonds and Clemens (and by extension McGwire and Sosa) act as if their behavior was normal and had no negative impact on baseball or other players, when in fact their cheating had a serious negative effect on baseball and the lives of many other players and would-be players. Players who have harmed so many of their colleagues should not be in the HoF.
Your last paragraph seems to kind of read like an argument of “two wrongs make a right” which is of course an absurd argument.
I always love the Bonds’ HOF discussion because it always has nothing to do with baseball. The guy is arguably the best player ever but lets talk about how nice of a person he is and the fact he roided when a ton of players roided and it wasn’t outlawed.
If you mention Selig getting in, you also have to mention LaRussa. He was manager for McGwire (twice!) and Canseco, and yet not only is he in the Hall, but he was on the Vet’s committee last year (and may have had a hand in electing Harold baines). If baseball had a roid problem, there was acceptance at every level.