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| Yes | 52% | 365 votes | Total: 706 votes | |
| No | 48% | 341 votes |
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Add to FavoritesThe Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown New York is sacred hallowed ground. It is a modern day cathedral and within its hallowed walls are the patron saints of the game. A degree of reverence is required as one wanders through this shrine. The heart of this cathedral is the wing that houses the plaques of baseball's immortals. Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Ty Cobb are all enshrined there. Pete Rose, Mark McGwire and Joe Jackson are not, but should be. These tainted stars belong there as well they were titans of the game, titans with flaws, but titans nevertheless. Did Rose bet on the game of baseball? Yes, but Pete Rose also played the game the way it was meant to be played, with the unbound enthusiasm of a child. His on the field accomplishments speak for themselves.
But let's face it, enshrinement into the Hall is held in the hands of sports writers, a select group of people who never played the game. They are also a group of people who at times have an ax to grind against those they are asked to elect. It is a flawed system at best, and in part it may be why Major League Baseball acknowledges the statistical accomplishments of Rose, Jackson, and Mark McGwire, while denying them a place in the Hall of Fame.
It is sad to think that Barry Bonds may soon meet the same fate. Barry, the most feared man in baseball, the man who will shatter some of baseball's most scared records, might some day have to buy a ticket if he wants to get into the Hall. What a shame that will be. Baseball's best player may just get shut out of an honor held by lesser players. Why is that you ask? Is it because he cheat on the game? Well, though he is innocent thus far, he might have, but so did Gaylord Perry right? In fact Perry made a career of cheating, throwing the spitball throughout his career, and yet the Hall of Fame found room for him. Isn't that a double standard of sort? We honor some men who found a way around the rules of the game while excluding others? Was Perry an isolated incident? Of course not, Whitey Ford is in the Hall as well. Whitey, the Yankees great, was fond of cutting up a baseball or two with a sharp ring he once wore. If character and fair play really counted so much, there would be room in the Hall for a nice guy like Dale Murphy. But Murphy, a two time MVP with +390 homers, will most likely miss out on the Hall as well. Never mind that while he played he chaired up to five charities at one time, those stats don't get you into the Hall these days. So please, save your breath on this portion of the argument.
So what is it about Barry that turns this simple question into a heated debate? Is it his arrogance? Well, the Hall of Fame is also full of players who were once as arrogant as Barry. Did we think any more of Steve Carlton when he refused to talk to the press? Did we keep Ted Williams out of the shrine for acting like a spoiled child? No. No we didn't. Why then don't the same rules apply to Barry Bonds? Maybe it's because times have changed. Once upon a time, the media protected the heroes of the game against all manners of small indiscretions. Now the media leads the charge to expose every player's frailty. Such a shift in the role that the media plays may be at the core of the question. We no longer love to put our heroes on a pedestal instead we want to tear them down.
So it comes down to this. Barry Bonds, the best hitter in baseball, the man who will soon eclipse the mark that Hank Aaron set, might be kept out of baseball's scared Hall because of a shift in the subjective rules of elections as well as the shifting role that the press plays in the process. If he does miss out, it will be a shame; after all, the man doesn't even have an asterisk by his name. What he has done on the field, baseball has accepted, it would be hypocritical than to deny him this final honor.
Learn more about this author, Rolando Cruz.
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No
Major League Baseball has some of the most infamous scapegoats in the history of professional sports. The two most infamous baseball players to pay the price of Hall of Fame banishment are Pete Rose and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. Rose was banned due to getting caught betting on baseball, it is still unknown if he "threw" any of these games. Jackson was caught up in the "Black Sox" scandal during the 1919 World Series. The idea to ban Jackson from the Hall of Fame could be credited with curbing the gambling problem that plagued the sport in the early 1900s. Rose's gambling issues came with growth of the gambling business in America. Gambling grown into more than organized-crime issue and became "big business." Rose's ban has been a dividing issue among fans. The band stopped all known players from gambling on the sport, but some think that he should be let into the Hall of Fame, since his known gambling took place after his playing career had ended.
Barry Bonds' performance-enhancin g drug scandal has shined a new light on Rose and Jackson's lowlights. Rose and Jackson's baseball statistics cannot be argued, they are elite and many current Hall of Famers cannot even touch their career numbers. Bonds, has put up some elite numbers, but the steroid scandal has put a "black eye" on the sport and the entire era of his play. He was not the first player to use performance-enhancin g drugs, but his motives for using them are subject. Most of the players who have been caught using steroids are players who are in-between minor-leagues and MLB platoon player. Those are the players who have been caught, but many assume some of the league leaders in the last ten years have used them at some point.
Using Barry Bonds as a scapegoat to curb the use of performance-enhancin g drugs is a great idea to clean up baseball. Unless Bonds can come up with proof that he didn't start taking steroids until after the 1998 season in which Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both broke the home-run record, he should be banned from the Hall of Fame. I came up with that scenario because Bonds was a Hall of Fame player before the 1998 season. His records should be cleared after that date and if he would be submitted into the Hall, it would be from 1985-1998. The difficulty with Bonds admitting that he used steroids is that he already lied under oath that he did not use them. He would most likely serve jail time and pay some large federal fines.
Bonds should not be in the Hall of Fame. His career is becoming more tainted with every year that passes. If Major League Baseball wants to clean up the sport and try and make people forget about this era of the sport, they can't let Bonds in the Hall of Fame. If Bonds becomes enshrined, I will no longer love the sport.
Learn more about this author, Sweetbob.
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