If it were up to me, the supposed steroid users of baseball would be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Every stinking, cheating one of them.
I’d put the good guys in there.
Sammy Sosa. Mike McGuire.
I’d put the jerks in there.
Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
Their crimes must not have been that severe. We knew what was going on. But baseball allowed them to play. Baseball prospered from them. Baseball was saved by them.
Now that they are old and used up, the gatekeepers of baseball. The Baseball Writers of America, are keeping them out of the Hall. That is the wrong decision and another reason many hate the media.
The sentiment will change some day when younger and clearer minds are in charge of the selection process. The gatekeepers of baseball are old, croggy dudes who set standards that do not jive with modern thinking.
There are some who refuse to vote for first-ballot nominees just because. There is no reason. These are rules they have arbitrarily put in place.
For Bonds and Clemens it was their last chance. Former Tigers manager Jim Leyland said Bonds might be the best player ever while endorsing him. Clemens is the best pitcher I’ve ever seen live. They both belong.
Bonds is the all-time MLB home run leader with 762 and is sixth in RBI’s (1,996). The man was a machine getting on base with a terrific .444 on base percentage. Sometimes it became boring when Bonds came to the plate. Teams would intentionally walk him rather than risk giving up another dinger – even when the bases were loaded. That’s how dangerous and wicked he was.
Clemens was a jerk on and off the mound. He’d dust you up and bust you up on the mound. He finished 354-184 with a 3.12 ERA and 1.173 WHIP. They are all Hall of Fame numbers for a man who may not have had a Hall of Fame personality.
And he cheated. We think.
“We’ve had so many cheaters who made the Baseball Hall of Fame,” Aaron said.
Aaron made this statement while saying Bonds, the man who passed him on the all-time home run list, should be voted into the Hall.
Do you know who got into the Hall of Fame? David Ortiz, a man suspected of using steroids. But we like this man. He has an outgoing personality and weekly appearances on television during the season which sweeps away the clouds of doubt.
Follow Foster on Twitter at TerryFosterDet.