Barry Bonds Belongs in the Hall of Fame. No Question. – Fanbuzz
There are a handful of humans in the discussion for best baseball player of all time. They are, in my opinion, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and eventually, Mike Trout.
Trout is so good at such a young age that he could retire today and be a Hall-of-Famer. Ruth not only changed baseball but saved it with his never-seen-before power-hitting abilities. Heck, he even had more than 20 awesome nicknames. Aaron held the career home run crown until Barry Lamar Bonds came along and, well, gave everyone something to talk about.
So lets talk about it.
Barry Bonds deserves to be in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He does. You cant keep the greatest player ever out of the games museum of best players. Its like no Michael Jordan in the Basketball Hall of Fame or no Tiger Woods in the Golf Hall of Fame.
Bonds is currently part of a group of Major League Baseballs all-time greats on the outside looking in. They not only changed how the game is played, but they also were some of the best to ever step on a diamond.
I like to imagine this group gathering around a poker table during baseballs Hall of Fame induction weekend. The gambling-addicted Pete Rose is all in on every hand. The illiterate Shoeless Joe Jackson is struggling to read his cards. Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Roger Clemens are banging out bicep curls under the table.
But make no mistake, they all deserve recognition in Cooperstown. Bonds, whose career was clouded with steroid and performance-enhancing drug allegations, most certainly deserves enshrinement in the Hall.
Its silly to pretend Bonds isnt the single greatest power hitter in the modern era. He crushed a Major League-record 762 home runs and is baseballs disputed home run king. He earned more walks than anyone in the history of the game, because hes the most feared hitter to ever live.
Dont believe me? How many players have been intentionally walkedwith the bases loaded?
Its also just as silly to pretend Bonds didnt magically evolve from a point guards physique to that of an NFL linebacker. The Bay Area Hulks head even changed shape over the course of his career.
But we can recognize both. And we should. It doesnt make sense to keep him out of the HOF and still count all of his statistics and games he played. If that were the case, then John Smoltz, Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling and the 446 other pitchers technically never served up home runs to Bonds.
What Bonds did as a member of the San Francisco Giants was unfathomable. He joined the team as a 27-year-old two-time MVP and hit 586 home runs from that point on until his final season as a 42-year-old in 2007.
In 2001, he broke Mark McGwires single-season home run record. No. 71 came against Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Chan Ho Park on Oct. 5. He finished with 73 homers and knocked in 137 RBIs while hitting .328. The behemoth outfielder crushed at least 40 long balls in eight seasons with San Francisco.
He and teammate Jeff Kent carried the Giants to the playoffs four times from 1993-2007. Bonds even walloped eight homers in the 2002 postseason, in which San Francisco fell to the Anaheim Angels in the World Series.
Bonds broke Hank Aarons career home run record in 2007 when he blasted No. 756 on Aug. 7 against Washington Nationals pitcher Mike Bacsik. The sports world stood still as Bonds, immediately raising his arms in celebration, watched the ball sail into a frenzy of fans beyond AT&T Parks right-center field wall. He finished his final year with 762 career homers.
Not only is Bonds baseball-reference page hilarious to peruse, it is incredibly easy to get lost in the many lists of factoids from his playing career. Here are just a few of my favorite:
Before he was the size of a WWE wrestler and was depositing moon balls into McCovey Cove beyond the right-field concourse at AT&T Park, he was already on track for a Hall-of-Fame career with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
He won the 1990 and 1992 National League Most Valuable Player award with the Pirates. Bonds hit more than 30 home runs, stole more than 30 bases and hit higher than .300 in each of those seasons. It was clear that even before the steroid allegations he was a rare talent heading for superstardom.
Said talent was easy to spot even when Bonds was a teenager.
Born in Riverside, California, to Patricia and former Major Leaguer Bobby Bonds, Barry attended Junipero Serra High School and became a prep All-American.
The Giants actually initially drafted him in 1982 but were unable to sign him because they didnt meet his $75,000 demand. Bonds instead headed to Arizona State University, where he hit .347 and 45 home runs for the Sun Devils. Though he was hated by teammates for his arrogance, as Jeff Pearlman detailed for ESPN, he emerged as one of the best college players in the nation.
The Pirates made Bonds their first round pick (6th overall) in the 1985 MLB Draft and he quickly rose through the clubs minor league system. He showed promise as a speedy slugger in his early 20s and by 25 he was the leagues MVP.
Explain to me how you keep these honors out of Cooperstown:
Maybe you glossed over that list and cried out, Steroids! If so, thats perfectly fine. Youre entitled that same opinion held by a majority of baseball fans and members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), who vote each year for potential Hall of Fame inductees.
The pile of evidence that Bonds knowingly took anabolic steroids is a mile high. The U.S. government reportedly found a positive drug test of Bonds in a 2007 raid of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), a supplements lab in California founded by Victor Conte whose clients allegedly consisted of many MLB players.
Bonds did nothing but deny performance-enhancing drug use until 2011, saying he was misled by his personal trainer, Greg Anderson. He said he thought he was taking flax seed oil and arthritis cream, and he never tested positive by the MLB. Believe what you want.
Still, it doesnt make sense that former MLB commissioner Bud Selig was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2017.
Selig is credited with baseballs rise in popularity during the late 1990s after the 1994 strike, but only because he turned a blind eye at the sports painfully obvious rampant use of steroids. It wasnt until 2002 that he addressed the steroid era and started cracking down on PEDs under the leagues joint drug program.
One drug Bonds has been linked to human growth hormone (HGH) wasnt even banned by MLB until 2005.
Yet the line of players tied to steroids who havent received and may never will receive enshrinement in Cooperstown remains unmoved. Players like Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez and Gary Sheffield have fallen short of the need 75 percent of the vote.
Others like Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro were never close to that number and fell off the Hall of Fame ballot. Future names on the ballot Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz will face difficulties getting in as well, while longtime New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter is a sure lock among first-time candidates in 2020.
Five players Mariano Rivera, Edgar Martinez, Harold Baines, Mike Mussina and Roy Halladay were inducted in 2019. Bonds fell short of the 75 percent needed, as did Clemens, who won an incredible seven Cy Young awards but was named in the Mitchell Report at the end of his career.
Bonds support has improved year after year, and he could reach that 75 percent mark soon. He received 59.1 percent of the votes in 2019, an improvement from the 56.4, 53.8, 44.3 and 36.8 in each of the years prior. He has three more years left on the ballot.
Bonds may seem far from getting in, but history shows hes likely to earn over 75 percent of the Hall of Fame voting by year nine or 10. Andre Dawson and Don Drysdale, among others, shared similar situations, though the circumstances are of course different in Bonds case.
Ryan Thibodaux has been collecting ballot information and compiling it here, and it shows even more support for Bonds among publicly known ballots. The former Pirate and Giant still needs more than 60 votes based off 2019 HOF tracker figures, however.
It doesnt take a rocket scientist to know that Barry Bonds was one of the most gifted players to ever play the game of baseball. Even before the steroid allegations, he was a two-time MVP in Pittsburgh and likely on track for Cooperstown.
The San Francisco Giants legend deserves a spot in Cooperstown, even if that means an asterisk on his plaque. You cant try to hold Bonds accountable while letting Selig off the hook. It doesnt work that way.
Joe Morgan, the Hall of Fames vice chairman, has argued to keep steroid users out. Reggie Jackson, another storied Hall-of-Famer, has argued the opposite side. And as The Undefeated notes, racists like Cap Anson taint the Hall already. Plus, players still use PEDs and drugs in todays game and were using long before the steroid era. Ever heard of greenies or Doc Ellis LSD no-hitter?
Several suspected steroid users such as Ivan Rodriguez, Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza have already garnered induction in recent years. Bud Selig, the overseer of the steroid era, has also been enshrined.
Now, its time for Barry to become immortalized.
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Barry Bonds Belongs in the Hall of Fame. No Question. - Fanbuzz
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