CLEVELAND — Editor's note: the video in the player above is from a previous story.
The mission of the National Baseball Hall of Fame is to preserve baseball’s history, honor excellence within the game, and make a connection between the generations of people who enjoy baseball.
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When it was announced on Tuesday that seven-time National League MVP Barry Bonds and seven-time Cy Young winner Roger Clemens were not voted into the Hall of Fame in their 10th and final year on the ballot, it should be looked at as a failure on the part of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, the group that handles voting for the Hall of Fame, as well as the very awards that Bonds and Clemens won a record number of times during their storied careers.
This isn’t an argument that Bonds and Clemens were good people -- in fact, an argument can be made to the contrary -- and it’s not an argument that cheating should be condoned. This is an argument that the story of baseball cannot be told without the game’s greatest players being part of it.
In an era that was marred by a large number of players using performance-enhancing substances, Bonds was the best offensive player -- and quite possibly the greatest to ever step to the plate -- and Clemens was the best starting pitcher. Both are suspected users of steroids or other substances. The alleged cheating that was done by those two is no different than the alleged cheating done by others in that era, or those that used other types of performance-enhancing measures in eras prior.
There are lesser players than Bonds and Clemens that have been enshrined in Cooperstown that have allegedly done performance-enhancing drugs. In fact, one was elected to the Hall of Fame on the same day that Bonds and Clemens fell off the ballot.
Former Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz was elected on his first year on the ballot, despite the fact he was a far lesser player than both Bonds and Clemens, while Ortiz went as far as allegedly failing a performance-enhancing drug test back in 2003. Ortiz testing positive for steroids back in 2003 was supposed to be kept confidential but was eventually reported in 2009.
Does Ortiz belong in the Hall of Fame anyway? Probably. It’s fair to say the fact that he was a likeable figure thanks to his larger-than-life personality didn’t hurt his candidacy and helped him to become a first ballot Hall of Famer despite the fact that for much of his career he didn’t play a position in the field.
Why does Ortiz, an alleged steroid user, find his way to Cooperstown but Bonds and Clemens, both alleged steroid users, don’t? That’s part of the reason that Tuesday appears to be one of the more hypocritical days in the history of baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Ortiz was easily looked at as one of baseball’s good guys. He was a loveable figure, even for those that didn’t like the Red Sox. It was easy to point to his fun-loving attitude, leadership inside a clubhouse that won a trio of World Series titles with him in it, and of course the moment he grabbed the microphone following the 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon proclaiming that Boston was, “Our f------ city.”
Bonds and Clemens didn’t have those things on their side. But that shouldn’t matter.
This, of course, brings up the oft-mentioned Character Clause that allows the character of the player to be one of the things brought up in whether or not a candidate is voted into the Hall of Fame. To say that there aren’t men enshrined that one wouldn’t want to share a meal with isn’t a stretch. There are countless instances of less-than-stellar people being stellar ballplayers.
Ty Cobb was an alleged racist that was at one point charged with attempted murder. Former commissioner and the man that oversaw baseball’s policy of segregation, Kenesaw Landis is a Hall of Famer. Pitcher Gaylord Perry was an admitted cheater, using foreign substances on the baseball as he pitched. Former commissioner Bud Selig was elected to the Hall of Fame thanks to his part in saving baseball in the 1990s following a contentious player strike that canceled the 1994 World Series. He oversaw the steroid era that featured guys like Bonds, Clemens, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa keeping baseball afloat. Why is Selig in, but the guys on the field are kept away? If Bonds and Clemens were nicer guys, would we be having this discussion?
It’s not the Hall of Nice Guys.
The Hall of Fame is filled with guys that have crossed the line in a number of ways. Bonds and Clemens are no different than that.
The case of Bonds, in particular, is an interesting one. The conventional thought is that his alleged steroid use didn’t begin until after the 1998 season, the one in which McGwire and Sosa put on a home run show.
From Bonds’ rookie year in Pittsburgh through the end of the 1998 season, he hit 411 home runs and stole 445 bases -- and he still stands as the only player in baseball history to do both. He also was an eight-time All-Star, to go along with his three MVP awards, seven Silver Slugger awards and eight Gold Glove awards.
In other words, before any suspected steroid use, Bonds had a better career statistically than that of Ortiz, who reportedly failed a drug test prior to any of his accolades.
Picking and choosing which great players enter the storied halls in Cooperstown is no easy task. It’s not a task for which this writer will likely ever be tasked with, and respect is deserved for those who are tasked with it.
But allowing one alleged steroid user in while two other alleged users with unquestionably better careers fall off the ballot shouldn’t have ever been the case. The same writers that are tasked with preserving the history of the game, by leaving Bonds and Clemens out from their rightful place amongst the enshrined, damaged that very same history.
Maybe it should just be the Hall of Irony after all.