So Barry Bonds didn't get into the Baseball Hall of Fame
Or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but that one's more understandable
On Tuesday, one third of the voters for the Baseball Hall of Fame decided that Barry Bonds, who was quite good at baseball back when he played baseball professionally, was not a worthy addition to the Baseball Hall of Fame. This was the 10th time that at least one third of the Hall voters made this decision, and since 10 is the (relatively new) limit for the number of times a player can appear on the writers’ ballot, it’s over. He’s done. Barry Bonds will not be a Hall of Famer.
I mean, unless he gets voted in by a players’ committee this December, which is absolutely not off the table, but we’re not talking about that for now.
No, what we’re talking about now is the decision of a third of the writers to not put Bonds in the Hall. Now, I don’t want to be too hard on baseball writers in general, and not just because I want one of them to tell their editor to hire me to write words for money for their publication. No, two thirds of them looked at Bonds and were like, “Yes, he’s a Hall of Famer, and I’m going to vote accordingly,” and I don’t think a majority should be tarred and feathered for the poor decisions of a minority.
On the other hand, there’s a reason the phrase is “One bad apple spoils the bunch.” Because when you see just one really shitty apple, oh boy do you not trust the rest of the apples to check boxes next to names for induction in Cooperstown.
Now, there’s one reason that most writers give for not electing Bonds: steroids. In an era where many players became rich and lauded for socking many steroid-aided dingers, Bonds used steroids and socked the most dingers. This is unconscionable. This is reprehensible. This is an Affront to The Game.
And yet, David Ortiz was elected this year. Don’t think I’m saying Ortiz wasn’t worthy, because he was (he drove in the winning run in the Twins’ last postseason series win, a feat that now seems so improbable that maybe he should get two plaques), but David Ortiz used steroids. David Ortiz failed a drug test and was named in the Mitchell Report. If the hard-line test is if a guy used performance enhancing drugs, then David Ortiz would not be in the Hall of Fame.
So that’s not it. What else? Well, the PED stuff is generally cited as an example of the character clause. The official rules of the Hall state that players:
shall be chosen on the basis of playing ability, sportsmanship, character, their contribution to the teams on which they played and to baseball in general
Bonds and other steroid users (including Roger Clemens, who was also not inducted into the Hall on his 10th try this year), the argument goes, have displayed poor sportsmanship and low character through using drugs to get better at baseball, and therefore have no place in the Hall.
But if character counts, then we should consider that Barry Bonds was credibly accused of domestic violence on multiple occasions.
It’s not something that Giants fans like to talk about or think about, because Barry Bonds was a God-Emperor of home runs who hit all the home runs and made our experience watching baseball immeasurably better, largely through home run-related methods.
There are two women, though, an ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend, who both claimed that Bonds was controlling and verbally and physically abusive. If you read what the two women have said about Bonds, one in divorce proceedings in court, and one in interviews with the authors of Game of Shadows, it’s very difficult to doubt them.
I was not there and I do not have perfect knowledge of everything that has ever happened in Barry Bonds’s life. But on the other hand: they’re telling the truth. It happened, and it happened multiple times, with multiple victims, over multiple decades. You can ignore that when you talk about Bonds (and I have, plenty of times), but you shouldn’t.
Domestic violence accusations are absolutely a sign of poor enough character that writers can take it into consideration. Even with what Bonds accomplished on the field, abuse can absolutely color your perception of him to keep him out of Cooperstown.
But if character counts, what the fuck is Cap Anson doing in the Hall? On multiple occasions, as the biggest star in baseball in the late 1800s, he refused to play games against teams that had Black players, paving the way for official segregation in the major leagues.
What the fuck is Rogers Hornsby, who was probably a KKK member, doing in the Hall of Fame? Or Ty Cobb, who famously had the personality of Ty Cobb? Or Kirby Puckett, who was accused of domestic violence just as credibly as Bonds was? Or Bobby Cox, another man who was accused of abuse by a victim who quickly retracted it, a common pattern among victims? There are more, but what’s the point? That’s not the standard. That was never the standard.
In fact, even people voting right now, today, aren’t taking it that seriously. This year, Gordon Wittenmyer voted for Omar Vizquel and not Bonds, despite the domestic violence accusations that Vizquel is currently facing. So did Troy Renck.
Again, this isn’t painting all baseball writers with a broad brush. Vizquel lost a lot of Hall support this year, and at least some of the people who voted for him mailed in their ballots before the new accusations against him came out.
Poor off-field character has never really been a barrier to Hall of Fame voting.
No, the thing that a third of HOF voters are taking a stand against is Barry Bonds being a dick to them. This is also the reason that Roger Clemens didn’t make it. It’s also also the reason that Curt Schilling has never made it. They were all great players who were dicks to the media, so (a percentage of) the media took it out on them by not voting them into the Hall of Fame, even though their on-field accomplishments meant they should have been in.
No, Sammy Sosa’s not going to make it, but Sosa wasn’t a great enough player without steroids to get in, so you can justify it. No, Gary Sheffield’s not going to make it, but he wasn’t a great enough player with steroids — he was very much in that Rafael Palmeiro zone — so you can justify it. Bonds and Clemens were great before they took steroids and otherwordly once they started using them, while playing against other guys who were also using steroids. They deserve to be in a museum that honors the greatest players in baseball history, because that’s what they were.
By the way, Bud Selig, who turned a blind eye to steroids, built the game back up on the backs of steroid users, made a shitload of money off steroid users, and then turned on the steroid users and scapegoated them when they became inconvenient, is in the Hall. The guys not voting for Bonds don’t seem very mad about that. Weird!
Barry Bonds was a shitty person and one of the greatest baseball players to ever walk the Earth. The Hall of Fame is a museum designed to remember the greatest baseball players to ever walk the Earth, many of whom were also shitty people. It was built for players like Barry Bonds. It exists to tell the stories of players like Barry Bonds. Leaving Barry Bonds out of it defeats the entire purpose.
At least some sportswriters got their revenge, though.