Barry Bonds may just be the most overrated player in the game of baseball today. That said, however, he still belongs in the Hall of Fame. A player must be rewarded for their accomplishments on the field, not their personality and legal troubles off it.

The thing that many choose to forget about Barry Bonds is that he was well on his way to the Hall of Fame before he ever even came to the San Francisco Giants. In his last 3 seasons with the Pirates, he never had an average below .292, and in 1992, he hit 34 homeruns. Late in his Pirates career and into the early years of his Giants career, he was considered the consumate five-tool player. This is a player who before last year had not had an OPS (On base percentage plus slugging percentage) in fifteen years. Fifteen years. That well predates all steroid allegations and legal troubles. This man has been at the top of the game of baseball for a very long time, and his amazing and most likely chemically-aided 73 homerun season in 2001 aside, he still is the most prolific and feared hitter of all time.

There are people that say that off the field problems should keep a player out of the Hall of Fame. They point to Pete Rose as their example of a player who is not allowed into the hall because of his off the field choices. However, Barry Bonds has never been caught using steroids, never been suspended for drug use, never banned for betting on baseball. As long as this holds true, all of the field speculation is just that-speculation. The man has never been caught cheating, and he is well on his way to owning the most prestigious record in the history of sport. This reason alone is enough to put him in the Hall of Fame. The writers worry about the damage they might cause to baseball's reputation by enshrining him, but the far greater travesty would be to see the game's greatest hitter left on the outside looking in. This is your call to act, Cooperstown.

Learn more about this author, David Teter.
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