Barry Bonds is deserving of a Hall of Fame exemption

At finest, it’s a crapshoot.

On Sunday, there’s a vote by the Modern Baseball Period Committee. And there’s an opportunity it could do what the BBWAA did not do: Put MLB’s all-time residence run king in Baseball’s Corridor of Fame.

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are amongst eight gamers who will seem on the Baseball Corridor of Fame Modern Baseball Period poll for the Corridor’s Class of 2023.

The vote will cowl gamers whose biggest contributions got here from 1988 to 2016.

Together with Bonds and Clemens, Albert Belle, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Dale Murphy, Rafael Palmeiro, and Curt Schilling are candidates.

Principally, these are gamers who didn’t get the mandatory 75 p.c of the votes from the writers who cowl the game each day.

Some take a look at it as an opportunity for gamers who’ve been neglected to get one other shot.

In actuality, it’s the backdoor.

If Bonds will get on this approach — the outcomes will probably be introduced at 8 p.m. — some will have a good time and be glad.

But it surely received’t have the identical really feel, or status.

To today, the Baseball Corridor of Fame is the toughest corridor of all the most important sports activities to get in. And let’s be frank, the one one followers care about.

So many different halls have change into laughingstocks as a result of anyone and everyone is being let in today. Baseball was headed that approach, too.

It wasn’t way back that the HOF disbanded the outdated Veteran’s Committee. Many of the gamers that many marvel how they obtained into the Hall got here from the committee of former executives, broadcasters, and gamers.

It turned a buddy membership. Plenty of former gamers who turned broadcasters had been enshrined. Oftentimes when followers debate who belongs within the Hall, they are going to use a participant for instance and say if they’re in that their favourite participant needs to be in.

And infrequently when researched, you understand the questionable participant was a veteran’s committee man. They usually weren’t voted in by the writers.

Gamers like Phil Rizzuto, Ralph Kiner, Pee Wee Reese, Invoice Mazeroski, and Harold Baines merely don’t belong in.

That’s what’s flawed with the method.

When you can’t get in after 10 years on the poll, you aren’t a Corridor of Famer.

For the document, I voted for Bonds all 10 years he was on the poll.

For certain, he was the best hitter I ever noticed. His profession stats are via the roof, together with seven MVPs and 762 homers, essentially the most within the recreation.

And I’m not dismissing the elephant within the room. However Bonds was by no means suspended by the league. All of his stats rely. Bonds was caught up in an period the place many gamers had been both on the juice or tried it. Examine the Mitchell Report. It was widespread, which means Bonds was greater than possible going through pitchers on the stuff, too. Therefore, it was extra of a degree enjoying discipline than folks need to admit.

It wasn’t like he was the lone wolf on the market.

Plus, there are different gamers rumored to be related to the juice who’ve gotten entrance into the corridor by the writers’ vote, together with Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, and Ivan Rodriguez. Rodriguez was even talked about in Jose Canseco’s e-book that blew the lid off the steroid scandal. But, Pudge obtained in on his first poll.

You shouldn’t be capable to decide and select. Both no juicers get in or all juicers get in.

We all know why Bonds has been diminished to making an attempt to get into the corridor this manner. Final winter, Bonds, and Clemens every did not be elected by the writers on their tenth and ultimate time on the poll.

Their connection to steroid use derailed their apparent first-ballot standing into the HOF.

This committee — made up of 16 Corridor of Fame gamers, staff executives, and journalists — that may take one other take a look at Bonds considers eight candidates. A candidate should get no less than 12 votes — 75 p.c of the voters. That’s the identical customary set by the BBWAA with a purpose to get into Cooperstown via the entrance door.

Nonetheless, you may’t be satisfied Bonds’ friends will get him in. And even when they do, it received’t resonate with most. And that’s a disgrace.