Monday, March 21, 2011

Bonds Trial and the Hall of Fame

The Barry Bonds trial has started with jury selection, and the trial could end in as little as three or four weeks.  He is being tried for perjury, stemming from him allegedly lying about knowingly using steroids and other performance enhancing drugs.  Bonds claims that his trainer rubbed some cream on him and gave him flax seed oil, and that he did not know that they were PED's known as "the cream" and "the clear".  No matter the outcome of the trial, his name and his records are all tainted in the eyes of the fans, and his chances of making it into the Hall of Fame are slim to none.


In the 1990's steroids were as much a part of baseball as peanuts and cracker jacks.  Bonds was one of many big name players to use performance enhancing drugs during this era, and I do not believe that he should be banned from the Hall of Fame for his steroid use.  If we look at Bonds' career before he went to San Francisco, and before he went from a skinny player with power and speed to a steroid using power machine, he was bound for the Hall of Fame.  In his early career, he was always a threat for 30 steals and 30 home runs, and he was still one of the most dynamic players in the game.  Later in his career when he bulked up, and it appeared that he was using steroids, he was still better than almost every other player whether they used steroids or not.

Steroid use is harmful to the body and it is cheating, so I am not saying that it should be okay to use, but where steroid use was so rampant at the time we should consider players like Bonds and McGuire for the Hall of Fame.  The record books should include an asterisk or they should be left out completely if they are proven to have used PED's, but they should still be considered for the Hall.  The "steroid era" was is a black mark on baseball history, but it was still an era, and players like Bonds and McGuire were the best of the era, so they should be treated like any other dominant players in any other era and be eligible for the Hall of Fame.

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