This isn't directed at you, just a rant in general.
The thing with Bonds and Clemens is that they would still have gone down as top 10 players/pitchers before they supposedly started juicing. I think people forget just how good 90's Bonds was because of the whole steroid thing. Between 1990-1998 he led the league in WAR 7 times. His OPS+ over that span was 180. For more modern guys, we all know how good 2001-2009 Pujols and current Trout are, right? 2001-2009 Pujols led in WAR 5 times and had a 172 OPS+. 2012-2020 Trout led in WAR 5 times and had a 178 OPS+. Post-1998 Bonds with a normal decline still ends as a top 5/10 position player ever. But he got pissed that lesser players were juicing and getting the attention so he wanted to show the baseball world what would happen when all-time great starts taking stuff. 2001-2004 Bonds is the most dominant athlete in the four major sports. Ever. It's estimated that over half and perhaps as high as 80% of the league was on something during this time. Did Bonds have access to "super" PEDs that the other guys didn't?
Ortiz took them. It's extremely likely that Ivan Rodriguez, Bagwell, and Piazza did. They're all in, as they should be. Bonds and Clemens should also be in.
Yeah....I agree with a lot of this.
I think the issue that baseball has, and writers have, is that a lot of the awards and records from the steroid era are an impure mark on baseball. I remember growing up and 61 home runs, 755 home runs were sacred numbers that everyone knew about and discussed all the time. Now there's records in their place that seem artificial, and no one has ever come close to reaching them since the HGH crackdown. It's almost an awkward moment when a baseball broadcaster even has to reference them.
So, first, I'll reiterate that this was largely due to the greed of MLB. They
knew this stuff was going on. They absolutely knew that guys like Canseco and McGwire were taking this stuff in the late 80s and early 90s. They knew McGwire, Sosa, etc. were taking this stuff in the late 90s. But, hey, they loved the ratings and the headlines about the home runs chase and gladly pocketed the money from the ratings. And this was during a time when steroids were already well known to the public; Ben Johnson's Olympic disqualification happened in the late 80s.
So back to Bonds and Clemens. I do agree that the biggest reason they're being penalized is due to some kind of protest, like if we don't put them in the Hall of Fame, their careers will be tainted, their records, Cy Youngs, MVPs, will be unofficially disregarded.
I don't think this is a great approach. I think the league should just retoactively strip the records from the books based on evidence and a committee decision. They could retroactively award things like MVP and Cy to other players, or whatever they want to do like that. But I do think both players belong in the Hall of Fame for many reasons. They were the best players of their generation, nothing has actually been proven (even though I strongly believe they both did it), and yes, others have gotten in despite suspiction.
