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What would make up the “perfect” Baseball Hall of Fame player? 

Someone like Barry Bonds will be a Hall of Famer because of his tremendous power. Roger Clemens will be induced into Cooperstown because he won so many games and struck out so many batters. 

The “perfect” Hall of Famer would presumably also hit for contact and have great speed. Good defensive skills would help as well, but Hall of Famers likely achieved that status because they played defense well enough to sustain a long career in baseball. 

Of the players eligible for the 2013 Hall of Fame class, several of them have aspects that would constitute the “perfect player.” But which traits would make for the best features in such a bionic, Frankenstein-type of creation? 

Here is how we’d put the “perfect” Hall of Famer together, based on the players currently on the ballot. 

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The 2013 MLB Hall of Fame class has been all over the news lately.

The announcement comes Wednesday, Jan. 9., and this year marks the first time that the some of the game’s greatest but also most controversial players—Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Curt Schilling—are eligible to be elected.

MLB Network has brought in everybody and their mother to give their two cents on who should be elected and how the era should be evaluated based on the prevalence of performance enhancing drugs.

Opinions on the subject are widely varied.

Some experts and observers accept that it was just the era that these players played in and are willing to overlook cheating to include players like Bonds, who despite admitting to unknowingly using steroids, is still the all-time home run leader.

Another option was to induct them later and hold them off of the first ballot as protest. Some say that any player suspected should be kept from baseball immortality.

One final opinion that has been posed by former reliever Dan Plesac and others—one that I find completely absurd—is that it’s an all-or-nothing situation, where either everyone should be withheld or everyone should be considered as if they did nothing wrong.

Starting with allowing them in or postponing their admission: cheaters are cheaters. Bonds used a substance and he even admitted it. Inducting Bonds, who forever put a black mark on the entire league, into the same class as role models like Cal Ripken Jr. and Jackie Robinson goes against everything that the Hall of Fame should stand for.

I’m also of the belief that it withholding a vote until a certain amount of time has passed is silly. Either the player is a Hall of Famer or not. In the end, it’s not like there are different tiers of the Hall of Fame.

On the subject of penalizing anyone suspected, that goes against everything America stands for. As citizens, we are innocent until proven guilty and that should carry over to baseball.

It’s pretty easy to say who definitely took drugs. Positive tests and admissions of guilt are valid proof that players cheated. Therefore, they should never be Hall of Famers. It’s a much tougher call on players suspected of using performance enhancing drugs, such as Roger Clemens. I am a Clemens hater, mostly because I really dislike the Yankees and the World Series broken bat incident with Mike Piazza.

But he is, without a doubt, one of the greatest pitchers ever. Unfortunately, nobody could ever prove that he took steroids. Whether or not you believe that he was clean is your opinion, but just because you think he cheated doesn’t mean that he did. Clemens is a Hall of Fame pitcher, and if Ryan Braun stays clean and productive, he should make it too.

The all-or-nothing proposal is just silly. Making sweeping generalizations is usually not smart and that’s how stereotypes form. Penalizing players for just being in the steroid era, whether or not they had any link to steroids at all, is just wrong. Players should be judged on a case-by-case basis.

In summation, every player is different, so each should be evaluated individually. If they have been proven guilty, they are out. If they are not proven guilty, they can be considered. In my opinion, Bonds, Sosa and McGwire are out. When Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and Bartolo Colon become eligible, they are out too. Clemens, Bagwell and Piazza deserve to be in.

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Home-run king Barry Bonds is statistically one of the most coveted hitters to ever walk into a batter’s box, but it will be having given in to an era full of off-the-field temptations that will keep him out of the hallowed ground of Cooperstown.

In the courts, Bonds was never convicted of perjury, but on April 13, 2011, the MLB’s leader in home runs was convicted of obstruction of justice and apparently misleading testimony.

Thus, the name Barry Bonds will likely always be associated with felony rather than history, and his Hall of Fame status will remain in question.

The argument of whether or not the gates of Cooperstown should be opened to PED (Performance Enhancing Drugs) users has been a controversial one. A decade with such widespread cheating has never before been seen in sports.

In an article by Buster Olney of ESPN, he argues that Hall of Fame voters should admit PED users and put the steroid argument to rest. Olney claims that any success guys like Bonds and Mark McGwire had “was rooted in that culture.”

Olney, who’s one of the more well-known baseball analysts over at ESPN and a personal favorite of mine, is wrong.

If PEDs in the 1990s and 2000s were “rooted in that culture,” than what about the era of gambling in baseball’s early years?

Putting the infamous Black Sox scandal aside, gambling was rampant and a true epidemic in Major League Baseball prior to 1921. Like today, gambling by players, coaches and managers was illegal and considered a form of cheating.

Under Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was in office from 1920-1944, 14 players, managers and owners were banned from baseball and the Hall of Fame for betting and throwing games.

Landis, a former District Court judge, was a true pioneer in laying down the law to help fix a broken game. His vehicle for doing so was handing out harsh punishments that included exclusion from baseball and baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Gambling was certainly “rooted in the culture” of baseball during the beginning of the twentieth century, and players were banned from the game. Yet, Mr. Olney believes that steroids were simply a product of the times and all those convicted should be allowed a shot at a Hall of Fame Ballot. It just doesn’t make much sense to me.

While baseball undergoes a healing process as it exits the steroid era, the threat of cheating is far from over. Commissioner Bud Selig initiated tougher drug testing in 2006, but is it really enough?

Manny Ramirez tested positive for PEDs…twice. The first time he was convicted in 2009, Commissioner Selig suspended him for 50 games. The second time, Selig gave him a 100-game suspension that pushed the 40-year-old into retirement.

Manny Ramirez ended his career with 555 home runs, 2,574 hits, 1,831 RBI and a chance to still make his way onto a Hall of Fame ballot.

It’s time to fix this game. It’s time for Commissioner Selig to refrain from his passive legislation of the old and begin Landis-style judgment for convicted steroid users.

But even if the commissioner begins banning players, it still leaves the case of Barry Bonds, who was never formally convicted for steroid use.

“I went through the system. I was never convicted of steroid use,” said Bonds. While he’s quick to admit to being a felon, he continues to deny ever using steroids.

We’re living in a country where you’re innocent until proven guilty, and, hypothetically if Selig decided to start banning PED users, it would be difficult to lay the hammer down on Bonds.

That’s where the Hall of Fame voters have and will continue to provide a barrier for PED users.

“A survey by The Associate Press shows that Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, as well as slugger Sammy Sosa don’t have enough votes to get into Cooperstown” when voting commences in January, The Huffington Post reports.

As sanctions for PED users get tougher, testing gets stricter and the steroid era dwindles down to a mere few instances, I believe we’ll see these prominent PED users of the steroid era begin to fade away from ballots and conversation entirely.

PED users will continue to receive votes, but it will never be enough. The debate has turned into an almost political argument of integrity vs. proportion, and right now integrity is winning.

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With the 2013 Hall of Fame announcements just a matter of weeks away, it’s easy to look back at all the past players who have been inducted into Cooperstown as they represent the best the game has ever seen and will forever be enshrined in history.

But what about those who don’t have a plaque in Cooperstown? There are many players who could arguably be in the Hall of Fame, but for one reason or another they’ve been left off the final ballots and remain on the outside looking in.

Here are some of the best former players that haven’t—and in some cases won’t—get the call to join baseball’s best in Cooperstown.

Note: Slideshow does not include first-time ballot players (Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza).

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Kevin Walker kept Bo Jackson out of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.

Walker is the Cincinnati Bengals linebacker who tackled Jackson, then a Los Angeles Raiders running back, during a 1990 NFL playoff game. The tackle resulted in a hip injury for Jackson which he never recovered from.

He’s quite possibly the best two-sport athlete of the modern era, and that’s why he’s the subject of ESPN’s newest 30 for 30 documentary “You Don’t Know Bo.” It’s is a great opportunity for a younger generation of sports fans to understand how incredible Jackson was in his prime.

Rarely does an athlete come along who can do the things that Jackson was able to do.

Deion Sanders played both baseball and football, but he was always an average player on the diamond.

Jackson was equally as talented in both sports, but his passion was in baseball. Football was nothing more than a hobby for him.

“You Don’t Know Bo” features countless sports personalities and former teammates of Jackson, all of whom deliver superlative after superlative discussing the greatness of Jackson.

One of the things that stands out is how author Chuck Klosterman discusses the baseball career of the former Kansas City Royal.

He went on to say that the numbers alone didn’t do justice to everything that Jackson did on the field. His numbers alone don’t jump off the page and aren’t anything historic.

But fans knew there was something special about Jackson and that he would always be considered one of the best athletes to play the game. That sums up how he should be viewed and explained to those who weren’t actually able to watch him.

The numbers, though, do lay claim that had Jackson stayed healthy his entire career, he could have made a very good case of making the Hall of Fame.

In 1990, the season before he picked up the injury, Jackson was entering his prime. The previous season he hit 32 home runs and drove in 105 runs. He was the All-Star Game MVP and finished 10th in the MVP voting.

Profiling very much as simply a slugger offensively, he even managed to hit a career-high .272 in 1990. It’s incredibly likely that with as good of shape as he was in, Jackson could have played productively for another seven or eight years.

His supreme athletic ability would have counted for him when it came to Hall of Fame voters. They’re a breed that relies heavily on narrative, and the story of Jackson’s exploits is second to none when it comes to the feats he could do.

Unfortunately, the narrative of Jackson now is just what he could have done had he not been injured.

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For a five- to six-year span, Sammy Sosa was one of the best home run hitters in MLB. 

With Sosa eligible to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame for the first time, the question is whether or not he belongs with the greatest players in the history of the game.

Could Sosa be part of the 2013 Hall of Fame class? Does his career home run total warrant a near-automatic bid ticket to Cooperstown?

Or will voters hold suspicion of PED use against him, as they surely will with Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and other names associated with baseball’s steroid era? And even if those players eventually get in, does Sosa have the sort of career numbers that simply cannot be denied?

Sosa has 609 career home runs. That is eighth on MLB’s all-time list, ahead of legends like Reggie Jackson, Mike Schmidt and Mickey Mantle. 

There was a time when that many home runs by a player would have guaranteed his entrance into the Hall of Fame.

Reaching 500 homers was considered an incredible achievement. It still is, of course. Only 25 players in the history of the sport have reached that milestone. But 600 home runs is another level. Eight players are on that pedestal. 

But career home run totals have to be viewed differently now because of the influence of PEDs and their perceived affect on the game. (I say “perceived,” because we don’t know exactly how or how much these substances help players. It’s all speculation, though there certainly appears to be some convincing evidence.) 

The six best single-season home run totals in baseball history all occurred from 1998 to 2001. Five of the top 10 career leaders in home runs played from the 1990s to the 2000s. 

Reaching 500 or 600 home runs during that era, regardless of whether or not you believe many players were doing so with pharmaceutical help, doesn’t appear quite as special as it did during the 1970s or earlier. 

Consider also that Sosa was reported to have tested positive for PEDs in 2003, according to The New York Times. If Hall of Fame voters are keeping Jeff Bagwell out of Cooperstown for being suspected of taking steroids, actual proof doesn’t help Sosa’s case. 

But Sosa will certainly be remembered for the 1998 season, during which he and Mark McGwire grabbed the attention of baseball fans, sports fans and the popular culture with their race to break Roger Maris’ single-season record of 61 home runs.

It was a reminder of how fun following baseball could be. We love to see records chased, especially a mythological achievement like the most home runs in a season. 

Sosa actually did break the record, hitting 66 home runs that season. But McGwire hit 70, achieving a mark that looked as if it may never be surpassed—or at least hold up for more than 30 years, as Maris’ total did. 

However, this wasn’t just a one-year aberration for Sosa. Of those top six seasons on the all-time home run list, he has three of them.

Sosa is the only player in MLB history with three seasons of 60 or more home runs. We spent 37 years wondering if anyone might hit that many homers again. He did it three times in a four-year span.

Over a six-year period, Sosa hit at least 40 homers. Not even Bonds or McGwire can say that. 

Sosa is unquestionably one of the best home run hitters MLB has ever seen. But was he one of baseball’s best players? Does hitting a whole lot of homers make someone a Hall of Famer?

Maybe this is the baseball equivalent of Buddy Ryan’s infamous dismissal of receiver Cris Carter when he was head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles: All he does is catch touchdowns. 

Did Sosa only hit home runs? He had 160 RBI in 2001, making him only the second National League player to accumulate that many in a single season. (The other was Hack Wilson, who holds the record of 191 RBI.) Four seasons earlier, Sosa drove in 158 runs. 

Sosa also has 2,408 career hits, which seems like a surprisingly high total for a slugger. McGwire, for instance, has 1,626 for his career.

But if you look at the all-time hit leaders in MLB history, Sosa’s total puts him in the company of players like Todd Helton and Bobby Abreu. With all due respect, I don’t think we’ll be debating their Hall of Fame chances in the years to come. 

In a previous article, I wrote that Barry Bonds deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. So why Bonds and not Sosa?

Bonds was worthy of Cooperstown in the 13 seasons before he reportedly began taking steroids after the 1998 season, according to the book Game of Shadows. He has nearly 3,000 hits and 2,000 RBI. He has more than 500 stolen bases. His career OPS is over 1.000. 

Oh, and Bonds’ 762 home runs are the most in MLB history. He was capable of hitting 40 home runs in a season even before he supposedly began using PEDs.

Sosa was a fringe major league player in the first four years of his career. Then something appeared to click. Perhaps it took him that long for his game to come together. 

But Sosa jumped from eight home runs in 1992 to 33 in 1993. Was that because he played in nearly twice as many games? Or was something else going on? Sosa made an even bigger jump from 1997 to 1998, going from 36 homers to 66.

Even Bonds didn’t have that large of a spike when he hit 73 homers in 2001. It’s certainly worth raising an eyebrow over. But again, maybe Sosa had a breakthrough with his swing. 

Did we mention that Sosa was once caught using a corked bat? That seems worth noting. 

Sosa has a compelling case for the Hall of Fame for all of the reasons mentioned above. He also has an MVP award and seven All-Star appearances on his resumé. At one point, he was perhaps the best home run hitter in baseball. 

But was Sosa truly one of the best players of his era? And should the notable spikes in his home run numbers during his career raise suspicions? Those questions will likely be enough to keep him out of Cooperstown. 

Follow @iancass on Twitter.

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The 2013 Hall of Fame (HoF) ballots were distributed on Wednesday, and among the more notable names are Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Roger Clemens. And, rather than express outrage at their potential selection due to cheating concerns, this author suggests we put them all in.

Now, before you go thinking that I am naive, consider the fact that I have written many articles over the years railing against the entire steroid era, suggesting it tarnishes Bud Selig’s legacy and disgusts this baseball fan for the greedy and selfish nature of players that would risk their health and jeopardize the integrity of the game and the sanctity of the rules by injecting themselves full of PEDs.

But I’ve since decided that such a viewpoint is just plain stupid. For one, probably half of baseball was on steroids during the height of the era, and perhaps much more if you believe Jose Canseco.

So the playing field was relatively level. And while it’s true that some, like Bonds for example, seemed to go overboard with the juice, making his head seemingly explode as muscles poured out of every fiber of his body, I say so what?

In Bonds’ case, he was Hall-worthy even before he tripled in size. As a skinny kid playing in Pittsburgh, he was a Gold Glove-caliber outfielder who could fly while hitting for average, getting on base and yes, hitting for power, albeit lacking the kind of outrageous power he would go on to develop as an alleged steroid abuser.

Bonds, in fact, was convicted of obstruction of justice for lying to a grand jury about using steroids and human growth hormones, while Sosa was never formally charged, although he was caught using a corked bat in 2003 while with the Chicago Cubs.

Clemens, meanwhile, was accused of using steroids by his former trainer Brian McNamee and he was named in the Mitchell Report. However, he was acquitted of charges that he lied to Congress when he said he never used PEDs. Does that make him innocent? Not in many people’s eyes, but it is what it is.

Other players from the steroid era have become eligible for the HoF recently but have not been granted entry, most notably Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro. McGwire admitted his PED usage, while Palmeiro denied ever knowingly taking them.

But the issue of whether or not a player was caught using the stuff seems irrelevant to me. There was no drug policy in place during the steroid era, and anyway, how do we know that PED users haven’t already been enshrined?

Hey, cheating in sports is nothing new. Professional athletes have looked for any edge they could get forever. Back in the day, it was “greenies” and now it’s Adderall and even Viagra. Pitchers have been doctoring the baseball since the game began.

Heck, spitballs were legal in baseball until 1920. And how can you penalize players in a sport where “stealing” is part of the game?

I’m not saying that cheating is right or even justifiable, I’m just saying that it was and still is part of the game. So go ahead and create a steroid wing or affix an asterisk next to their names if you must, but we cannot ignore those who excelled during this era.

There is little doubt that steroids increase power. but they don’t help you hit a round ball with a round bat. Increased power alone does not make a HoF‘er.

There probably are other benefits to PEDs, especially for pitchers and those recovering from injury, but again, if more than half the sport was taking them, what’s the problem?

Players who took amphetamines had an unfair competitive advantage, right? So why penalize only those who took the PEDs from the steroid era?

The main thing I hate about the whole era is that the home run king was determined through questionable means. As I wrote before, I feel that Bonds was a certain HoF candidate well before he got huge, but I doubt he would have broken Hank Aaron’s record and become the all-time home run king without assistance.

Still, do we know with absolute certainty that Aaron, Roger Maris or even Babe Ruth never did something to enhance their performance? I mean, how can we ever be 100% sure of anything in this world?

It may be a legitimate question whether McGwire belongs in the HoF from a pure baseball perspective. But to keep him out because of steroids is silly, in my opinion.  

Also, what criteria do you use to determine which players form the era get enshrined and which ones do not and is it totally fair? If a player was convicted and admits usage do you keep him out? 

And if you do, isn’t that penalizing someone for being truthful? Is that really what we want to do?

I know, so many questions, so little common sense. Still, as much as I dislike Sosa, Bonds and Clemens, both for what they did as well as the kind of men they are, I feel they deserve a place among baseball’s immortals.

With all the uproar and furor, I’ll be dating Candice Swanepoel before all of these steroid guys get elected on the first ballot. Yet I hope that the writers who vote for this honor will see beyond the needles and look at what they accomplished.

Would they have accomplished what they did without use of PEDs? Well, it doesn’t matter because the fact is they did accomplish all they did and if you just look at the numbers they are more than deserving of enshrinement.

One thing I find almost as distasteful as the cheating are the writers who are using their vote as a bully pulpit to express their ideals. Look, professional sports aren’t a place for being sanctimonious and anyone who thinks they are just need to look at Lance Armstrong to understand.

Sosa and McGwire were credited with saving baseball after the strike, when their historic home run chase went viral. Selig and others conveniently looked the other way when it was to their benefit, so it would be hypocritical to now condemn them as frauds.

Of course, Selig was a used car salesman so I’m sure that logic escapes him. Say anything you have to to get the job done, right? The job being, in this case, saving his legacy.

Selig wants to be known as the man who cleaned up the sport, rather than the one who enabled the cheaters. Yet enable he did so now it seems awfully repugnant for him not to support the candidacy of these sure-fire HoF‘ers.

As baseball fans, we all want our teams to win championships and our players to perform to the best of their ability. Yet when the smoke clears and dust settles, we forget what that competitive drive sometimes leads grown men to do.

One final thought: wouldn’t it be delicious for a player to admit PED usage at his HoF induction ceremony?  That would be appointment television—it would certainly enhance his performance. 

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Hall of Fame season is fast descending upon us. The ballot for the 2013 was announced Wednesday, and writers are already mobilizing to build support for voting movements and ideologies.

I think most people can agree that the Hall of Fame is facing several issues, both in this election and the upcoming ones, and people are always determined to come up with solutions to the problems. Ideas like letting the players and managers vote, introducing a limit on ballots a player can appear on and banning steroid users get thrown out with alarming frequency at this time of year. 

So many of these fixes aren’t worth the trouble, though. The players and managers have a horrible track record in recognizing greatness in fellow players, whether it be All-Star Game backups or Gold Glove award winners. Limiting a player ignores the many deserving players who, for one reason or another, haven’t gone in on the first ballot. Banning steroids users ignores the long history of cheaters already enshrined.

In truth, the real fixes Cooperstown needs are much simpler.

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With MLB‘s 2013 Hall of Fame voting discussions dominated by whether Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds are deserving candidates, another candidate with little hope of garnering the required 75 percent vote enters his 13th year of eligibility. His name is Don Mattingly, aka “Donnie Baseball”, who played first base for the New York Yankees.

By the tender age of 26, Don Mattingly had won a batting title and an MVP award. During his first four full seasons, Mattingly amassed an astounding 842 hits, blasted 119 homers and had 483 runs batted in. His batting average stood at a sparkling .331. Mattingly was one of the toughest batters in all of baseball to strike out (a rarity for a power hitter). For his career, Don struck out once every 15.7 at-bats.

In the field, Mattingly was equally brilliant. With cat-like reflexes, and sure hands, Don won nine Golden Glove awards. Entering the 1990 season, Don Mattingly was recognized as one of the best players in the game—a near-certain future Hall of Fame member. The sky was the limit for Donnie Baseball.

Unfortunately, from there, Don’s story heads south. A back injury, suffered when his spike got caught in a seam of artificial surface, robbed him of the lightning bat speed that once had balls rocketing off of his bat with regularity. 

The hours Mattingly usually spent in the batting cage were suddenly shared with those spent on the trainer’s table for his injured back. Don Mattingly‘s back would trouble him for the remainder of his career—a career cut short by the injury, playing his final game at the age of only 34.

Despite his career hampered and shortened due to his back, Don Mattingly still produced exceptional numbers.  His lifetime batting average stands at .307, with 2,153 hits, 222 homers and 1,099 runs batted in. Mattingly was also bestowed the honor of being named the captain of the New York Yankees.

Some questions are: Will the voters eventually reward Don Mattingly for the dominant player he was during most of the 1980’s?  If he were to be voted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, would there be any complaints by those already enshrined? 

Was Don Mattingly a baseball Superstar, or was he just a nice player who does not belong with the best? Lastly, would it be good for the game of baseball if Don Mattingly gets voted in?

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Five years ago on Aug. 7, Barry Bonds hit home run No. 756 for his career, taking over baseball’s all-time home run record from Hank Aaron. 

That 2007 season also turned out to Bonds’ final one in the major leagues. With five years passed since he stopped playing (he never officially retired, but acknowledged his career was over two years later), he’s also eligible for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. 

Though Bonds being a part of the 2013 class of Hall of Fame inductees seems like a no-brainer based on his spectacular numbers, the controversy surrounding Bonds throughout his career is not going to make it that simple. 

Obviously, Bonds’ alleged PED use hangs over his achievements like a dark cloud of suspicion and doubt. Hall of Fame voters have already held such allegations against eligible players, regardless of actual evidence. Just ask Jeff Bagwell. 

Some will obviously feel that Bonds’ achievements are forever tainted by suspicions of PED use, especially his involvement with the BALCO scandal. During grand jury testimony in 2003, Bonds said that he used “the cream” and “the clear,” but didn’t know those substances were steroids because his trainer told him otherwise. 

A No-Doubt Hall of Famer

In some people’s eyes, Bonds is a cheater—one who cynically took PEDs to make sure he achieved all the records that matter in baseball—and shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame. 

But look at the man’s Baseball-Reference page. In particular, look at all the numbers that are in bold type, meaning he led the majors in that particular category. It’s not just his home run numbers that are in bold.

At various points throughout his career, Bonds led the league in batting, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS. He even led the league in runs scored, total bases and games played. In perhaps the greatest indication of how feared and respected he was as a hitter, Bonds led the league in intentional walks in 12 of his 22 seasons. 

He won seven National League Most Valuable Player awards. Three of those came while he was with the Pittsburgh Pirates, long before there was ever any suspicion that Bonds was taking something extra to give himself a boost on the field. 

Even if you look at Bonds’ career before 1998, when he reportedly began using steroids, according to the book Game of Shadows, he was a Hall of Fame baseball player. He had six consecutive seasons with 30-plus homers, hitting 40 or more three times. Bonds hit over .300 in four of those seasons and surpassed 100 RBI in five of them. 

Perhaps it’s unfair to just assume that many, many players were taking steroids from the mid-90s through the 2000s. But the numbers say that it wasn’t just a few players who were looking for an edge. So how can voters just single out a handful of players and penalize them?

If Bonds was taking steroids—and the changes in his body in addition to the surge in his statistics strongly indicate so—while many of his major league peers were doing it, he was still better than just about anyone in the sport. 

Taking Out a Grudge

However, PED allegations won’t be the only large obstacle between Bonds and Cooperstown. He also has to account for his relationship with the media. The writers that Bonds had a contentious relationship with throughout his career control his Hall of Fame induction with their vote.

Those who were mistreated and inconvenienced by Bonds’ surly attitude and unwillingness to talk might take this opportunity to exact a measure of passive-aggressive revenge by keeping him out of the Hall of Fame—even if it’s just for one year, in what’s become a silly stratification of the inductees.

The best of the best are “first ballot” Hall of Famers, gaining entry when first eligible, while the other less best get in later on after they wait their turn in line. 

Where will Bonds fall on that scale? His numbers are absolutely, undoubtedly first-ballot worthy. But it’s entirely possible that voters will use their ballots to make a statement—both against his alleged steroid use and treatment of the media—and make him wait. 

Judging by remarks Bonds made to MLB.com’s Barry Bloom, he expects that to happen. And some of that defiance and anger that so many associate with Bonds comes to the surface as he considers the possibility that he could be withheld from his rightful honor.

“I don’t worry about it because I don’t want to be negative about the way other people think it should be run,” Bonds said when asked how he felt about being eligible for the Hall of Fame. “That’s their opinion, and I’m not going to be negative. I know I’m going to be gone one day. If you want to keep me out, that’s your business.”

But for someone who says he doesn’t worry about such matters, Bonds then went on a rather incoherent rant when asked how voters might approach players of his era who have steroid allegations attached to them.

“You have to vote on baseball the way baseball needs to be voted on,” Bonds said to Bloom. “If you vote on your assumptions or what you believe or what you think might have been going on there, that’s your problem. You’re at fault. It has nothing to do with what your opinion is. Period.

“If that’s the case, you better go way, way back and start thinking about your opinions. If that’s how you feel life should be run, I would say then you run your Hall of Fame the way you want to run your Hall of Fame. That’s what I think. That’s my personal opinion. If you want to do the Hall of Fame the way the Hall of Fame is supposed to be done, then you make the right decision on that. If you don’t, that’s on you. To stamp something on your assumptions, it doesn’t work for me.”

Voters Should Do the Right Thing

OK, let’s cut through phrases like “how you feel life should be run” and focus on “the way baseball needs to be voted on.”

I’m going to presume Bonds means that the best players should be voted into the Hall of Fame. And he’s absolutely right about that. 

Bonds is also right that suspicions or grudges shouldn’t have a bearing on someone’s Hall of Fame worthiness. A player either is a Hall of Famer or he isn’t. None of this “first ballot” stuff should matter, especially for players who were clearly the best at their position and among their peers. 

That’s not to say that voters shouldn’t be allowed to take their time. Look over the evidence more clearly and come to a conclusion in certain cases, as happened with Bert Blyleven. Sometimes, the numbers just don’t jump out and make the verdict wholly apparent.

But the verdict is entirely obvious with Bonds. Even if he’s displaying his signature arrogance when he says there’s not a doubt in his mind that he’s a Hall of Famer, Bonds is right. 

The idea that he created a character, a persona to make himself a villain against the media is laughable. Bonds should just admit that he needed to be adversarial to give himself the edge he needed, and talking to the media—even if it really was part of his job—on a regular basis interfered with that. 

In his interview with Bloom, Bonds admits that he “could’ve given the media a little more” later in his career. The cynical view is that Bonds is only saying this now because he knows the media controls his fate and he’s kissing up a bit. But that also speaks to the concern Bonds has that his Hall of Fame candidacy could actually be affected by his behavior.

The man is worried. That’s enough. Hall of Fame voters don’t need to make an additional statement. Bonds is already sweating over his induction. Isn’t that sufficient punishment if he actually deserves any sort of penalty? 

Hall of Fame voters should show they’re better than bitter scribes taking out a grudge. Here’s hoping that they realize they’re not bigger than the game and give Bonds the honor his career deserves.

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