Bonds and Clemens Are Not Hall of Famers

Nick Mandarano

Keep in mind that Cooperstown is home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and crew are more than welcome in the National Baseball Museum. In fact, I think it’d be a disgrace to keep them out. They are all an integral part of the game’s history. Barry Bonds is baseball’s all-time home run king. Roger Clemens is a 7-time Cy Young Award winner. The two were the face of baseball for an entire era. Of course we must include them.

But the Museum and the Hall of Fame are two separate entities. Not enough people understand that. A story of baseball’s history without the inclusion of these two superstars is unquestionably an incomplete story. But why should we grant these men the sport’s most hallowed honor if they spent their entire career cheating and disrespecting the game? A true lover of baseball should feel personally offended that these men are belittling the importance and integrity of baseball by cheating to shatter sacred records.

The BBWAA lays out six characteristics in which a player must excel in order to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. “Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.”

How, then, can a guy like Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens be inducted into the Hall of Fame? Sure, they have excelled in the area of player’s record, playing ability and contributions to the team(s), but that’s only half the argument. The other half indicates that the Hall of Fame is not just for the most talented players. It’s about how these men played the game and the path they took to greatness. Where is the integrity, or the sportsmanship, or the character in these players’ careers?

The online edition of the Oxford Dictionary lists fairness, truthfulness, and sincerity as synonyms for integrity. What Bonds and Clemens did sure as hell isn’t fair, truthful or sincere. Sportsmanship and character follow the same logic.

It’s quite a shame because we can almost definitively said Bonds and Clemens would have been in the Hall of Fame without any forms of PED’s anyway. There’s a similar argument for Alex Rodriguez when his time comes around. But any argument that goes something like, “Oh, well they would’ve been this good anyway so let’s just let them in” is totally missing the point.

I don’t doubt that Bonds, Clemens, and even Rodriguez are good enough players to earn a plaque with or without steroids. That’s not my argument. My argument is that they blew it. They cheated. It’s not that I believe these players are only Hall of Fame calibers only because they had some artificial help. That’s actually the opposite of what I believe. What I believe is that these players should not receive the game’s greatest honor because they cheated and disrespected the game to the utmost degree. They lack that integrity, sportsmanship and character that the BBWAA is supposedly holding these candidates to.

If these guys are one day welcomed into Cooperstown, then that’s great. In fact, they ought to be. Let’s not try to hide or completely forget about an entire era of baseball. However, I surely hope that when that day comes, their names are in the museum and nowhere else. It’d be an utter disgrace to see these faces in the Hall of Fame.