The debate over Bonds’s candidacy has ripped open old wounds over baseball’s shameful “steroid era,” and sparked deeper questions about how we should remember our blemished superstars.
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Barry Bonds hit more home runs than any other player in MLB history (762), hit more home runs in a single season than any other player in MLB history (73), and is undoubtedly one of the best hitters who’s ever stepped into the batter’s box.
And yet, in the 10 times Bonds was on the ballot to be considered for the Baseball Hall of Fame, he has never gotten enough votes to be immortalized among the sport’s greats in Cooperstown, New York.
That could change today, when a 16-member group, known as the Contemporary Baseball Era committee, will decide on whether to grant Bonds—and seven other baseball players, including star pitcher Roger Clemens—entrance into the HOF.
But it’s doubtful Bonds will get the 12 votes necessary to send him to the Hall. And it’s for the same reason that he was consistently snubbed in prior rounds of voting: The bulging frame that whacked all those homers is viewed as artificial, the result of alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs.
The debate over Bonds’s candidacy has ripped open old wounds over baseball’s shameful “steroid era,” and sparked deeper questions about how we should remember our blemished superstars. Let’s get into the arguments.
The case against Bonds in the Hall of Fame
Those who want to keep Bonds out say it’s pretty simple: He cheated, defiling the integrity of the sport. It would be immoral to “honor” him with a plaque in baseball’s hallowed museum, next to all the players who punched their ticket the right way.
In the Washington Post, John Feinstein wrote, “A Hall of Fame should be about more than numbers; it should be about what a player—or manager or owner or commissioner—meant to the history of the game.”
Ryne Sandberg, a Hall of Fame baseball player himself and a member of the committee who will be voting on Bonds’s candidacy today, has drawn a similar line in the sand: “It’s about stats, integrity, and playing by the rules. There’s no cheating in Major League Baseball or the Hall of Fame,” he said in 2018.
The case for Bonds
The folks in this camp say the anti-Bonds people need to lose their monocles and enter the real world. “It’s a museum. About baseball. It ain’t a church, synagogue, or mosque. Nor is it a world heritage site. And it’s absolutely not a club where only the sanctified should be allowed entry,” Adam Caparell wrote for Complex.
Bonds supporters say the Hall of Fame is already littered with unsavory people—including known racists and plenty of players who were caught using performance-enhancing drugs. Heck, Bud Selig, MLB’s commissioner during the steroid era, is in the Hall. By snubbing Bonds and denying his role in baseball’s history, voters are trying to preserve the purity of an institution that has none.—NF
