I don’t want to talk about the Astros. They’re being celebrated for their second World Series victory, which is presumably their first legitimate one, but the sting of their Cheatin’ Title in 2017 is still lingering. Yes, I am happy for Dusty, and I’m not unhappy for Mauricio Dubon and Will Smith, but overall, as a franchise, they’re cheaters. I don’t want to celebrate them. Cheaters shouldn’t be honored; they should be shunned, pilloried, and ostracized. Their accomplishments are meaningless and should be treated as such. I just don’t want to see cheaters rewarded with the greatest honor in their sport. Makes me sick.
Now, let’s talk about why Barry Bonds should go into the Hall of Fame.
It was announced yesterday that Bonds would be on the 2023 Contemporary Baseball Era Ballot, along with Albert Belle, Roger Clemens, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Dale Murphy, Rafael Palmeiro, and Curt Schilling (the category is for players “whose greatest contributions to the game were realized from the 1980 to present era”). All of them are certainly worthy of further consideration; all of them also have a glaring reason that they didn’t make it: McGriff wasn’t good enough for long enough, Bonds and Palmeiro used steroids, Schilling has spent his entire post-baseball life being a gaping, raging asshole.
Of all of them, though, Bonds was clearly the best player. In almost any group of baseball players ever dreamt up, Bonds would be clearly the best one, and this hypothetical group is no different. He is the only member to have hit 762 career home runs, and while Palmeiro’s 3,000 hit/500 homer thing is impressive, it’s not quite All-Time Home Run Record impressive.
Bonds, despite his personal failings and his on-field controversy, certainly spent his entire career being very impressive. Nobody needs to hear me talk about him being the only 400/400 and 500/500 guy, or that year his OBP was over .600, or the way he broke the game from 2001-2004 because he was too good to treat normally. Nobody needs to hear me say that because you all already know because they’re part of his legend.
A player with a legend of staggering unprecedented dominance should probably be part of the building for the best baseball players in history.
Bonds wouldn’t even be the first steroid-era cheater who used steroids to get in. David Ortiz rather famously failed a drug test, but everyone likes him, so into the Hall he went a couple years ago.
“Everyone likes him” is the whole problem, though. During his major league career, Bonds alienated practically everyone while Ortiz endeared himself to practically everyone; in both cases, this included the players, executives, and most of all the writers who will comprise the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee. Perhaps a committee of solely Bonds’ peers would have meant he had a better shot at enshrinement than one which also contained the writers he used to blow off every night, a move which said writers did not care for.
The steroids, then, are just as much an excuse as a grievance. Yes, it was bad and he shouldn’t have done it and he was more successful than anyone else who used the steroids, but it’s not like Bonds was alone. Leaked testing results revealed many steroid users, while the Mitchell report uncovered a whole lot more. Singling out one target and waving a rolled-up newspaper at him is probably not the most effective solution.
I mean, unless that target is the Astros.
It’s possible my years of being a Giants fan mean that I have blinders when it comes to the subject of Barry Lamar Bonds, but I have no such connection to the Houston Astros. Yes, it is delightful that they beat the Dodgers in 2017 while cheating, but even still, they’re a Villain and I get to be Mad At Them forever. I don’t want to see them honored. I don’t want to see them celebrated. I don’t want people to discuss their accomplishments without adding a verbal asterisk.
And yet. Sure, I never heard about any other team banging on trash can lids to give away whether the next pitch would be off-speed, but there was certainly electronic sign-stealing. Yes, the Astros were more successful with it than anyone else, but is that their real crime? And does it matter? Not to me, an Astros hater. And also, when you apply the same question to Bonds, yes, it matters a lot.
This is not to say that I am specifically wrong about the Astros or wrong about Bonds, but that it’s inconsistent that my opinions about the two of them are so wildly different. Here’s the thing, though: I liked Barry Bonds. I don’t like the Houston Astros. I don’t feel any need for consistency in these positions. Sure, that would be a rule that makes sense, but as we’ve learned, winners don’t play by the rules.