Barry Lemar Bonds. William Roger Clemens. Two names to be forever associated in their own way with infamy. With controversy. With shame. Steroid users, jerks. There should also be another adjective to describe both men in addition to these. Hall of Famer. However, due to the gate-keeping and moral superiority complex of the Hall of Fame voters, this is something they cannot call themselves. And unless the Veteran's committee has a change of heart when eligible in 2023 onwards, they never will be. This, I cannot stress, is a damn shame.
You see, baseball is going through a bit of a bad time. The lockout rumbles on, threatening, at best, the start of Spring Training. Regular season games may be missed. It's all a bit of a mess at the moment, and whilst this may change in the near future (there seems to be some, slight, leeway on behalf of the Players' Association), there is no baseball currently occurring at the highest level in the United States of America. No trades, no free agent signings, no team events, nothing. Heck, you can't even purchase tickets with just over two months left before the season starts. However, this is nothing in terms of the bigger issue. Is baseball popular enough? It's not as popular as the NFL. Depending on who you quote, the general consensus is that the MLB currently flip-flops with the NBA for the second most popular sporting league in the nation. But this does not mean baseball does not have an issue with this. The NFL is the monolith, the cultural phenomenon, the Superbowl being the biggest sporting event within the US. The NBA is a master of marketing it's superstars. Lebron James, Kevin Durant and Michael Jordan are more familiar to many Americans than their own family members. However, the MLB has the likes of Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani and Fernando Tatis Jr. Heck, it even has the likes of Bryce Harper and Mookie Betts. Bankable, attractive, charismatic stars. However, these are not household names. How is this possible? The MLB is dropping the ball massively and selling their stars short. Failing.
So, why did I have that little rant? Well, you see, the MLB had a period within many of you dear readers' lifetimes when their stars were household names. The sport was exciting. Must watch. Sexy even. The only issue? Steroids. Ah. Shit. The likes of Bonds and Clemens were foremost in many minds from this period. Keeping them out of a museum celebrating the past of the sport and it's glories, seems bizarre. So your going to keep the single season and career HR king, the holder of the most MVP's in history, out? The holder of the most Cy Young's in history too? Bizarre. If someone dropped a guy from 1963 into 2022, and said the holder of the hit record, the home run record, and the holder of the most MVP's and Cy Young's in history would be on the outside of the Hall of Fame looking in, like dirty voyeurs, they'd think they landed in some alternate universe where those things are bad. But they are not. Steroids are bad, yes. But these guys deserve the Hall of Fame, period.
The Hall isn't exactly lilywhite as it is. Are using steroids worse than, say, killing someone? No of course not. How about racism? Again, of course not. Yet the Hall has murderers, and racists. Now, bear with me. Hear me out. Racist's in the Hall cheated worse than Bonds and Clemens. One hundred percent, and I will fight anyone to the death who disagrees. You see, they purposely diluted the player pool. Only white's and white passing Latinos need apply. So therefore you miss out on black and dark skinned Latino players. Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige (I'm talking prime here, not when he was 95 years old when he came to the MLB), Martin Dihigo, and the list goes on. They never had their shot. Jackie Robinson missed years of his prime. Larry Doby too, and countless others. They all missed out, because the racist policy of whites only kept them out. That is cheating on a far more significant scale than steroids. Again, steroids are undoubtedly bad. But not as bad as racism. Neither in terms of morals, or cheating. And yet, many racists stand proudly in the Hall of Fame. Make it make sense people!
The final elephant in the room. There are ("potentially") steroid users within the hallowed rooms of the Hall of Fame already. I won't name names (one shares a nickname with another Hall of Fame catcher, another shares a name with a town square in Italy, and another literally may or may not have been elected....), however the stench is undoubted. Yet they are in. Again, make it make sense people!
In conclusion. Veterans committee. Elect Mr Bonds and Mr Clemens. End of discussion, and stop this pointless moral superiority complex from men who have had the same amount of Major League at bats as me (for the record, that is a big fat 0), and have multiple skeletons in their own closets. This is a Hall of Fame. A museum of Baseball excellence. And Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens personified this.
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