Should Bonds, Sosa, McGuire and Clemens (and others) be in the hall of fame?

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djp73
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Should Bonds, Sosa, McGuire and Clemens (and others) be in the hall of fame?

Post by djp73 » 26 Jan 2022, 08:03

Bonds just missed out on making the HOF for the 10th year, he's out unless the historic committee or whatever they're called gets him in.

Do you think those "steroid era" guys should be in? I do. When those guys were hitting all those home runs and getting people way more interested in baseball than they ever were the league was loving it.

Thoughts?
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Caesar
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Should Bonds, Sosa, McGuire and Clemens (and others) be in the hall of fame?

Post by Caesar » 26 Jan 2022, 08:38

Well, the issue here is that some of these players never actually tested positive for any banned substances because there was no mandatory testing in the MLB at the time. Bonds, for example, is suspected of use because of the BALCO thing. In fact, steroids weren't even banned in the MLB until 2005 and HGH in 2011. The flip side of this is hypocrisy. David Ortiz was in the same list of players from 2003 that supposedly included Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, etc. Then you get Manfred saying in 2016 that those test results were inconclusive and absolved Ortiz. Doesn't it absolve all the other guys too? Bar McGwire since he admitted to it.

Basically, you shouldn't be barred from things for suspicions but baseball takes are archaic as fuck. But McGwire? Yes, because he admitted to it. His bad. Also, anyone who actually tested positive for a banned substance. Clemens is a little more shaky since he was mentioned in the Mitchell Report 82 times but ya know.
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mvp
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Should Bonds, Sosa, McGuire and Clemens (and others) be in the hall of fame?

Post by mvp » 26 Jan 2022, 09:17

I'm going to say yes. I've done some deep digging on steroids and SARMS, and I personally believe that most high level athletes are on some type of hormone altering/performance drug, whether for physical strength, recovery, or anything else. So having that mindset, I would personally ignore the "banned substance" argument and put these guys in.
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Captain Canada
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Should Bonds, Sosa, McGuire and Clemens (and others) be in the hall of fame?

Post by Captain Canada » 26 Jan 2022, 11:28

Yeah, for the reasons mentioned above. It makes your league look tacky as fuck to outsiders or people trying to get into your game such as myself when your best players aren't in your Hall of Fame.
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Agent
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Should Bonds, Sosa, McGuire and Clemens (and others) be in the hall of fame?

Post by Agent » 26 Jan 2022, 13:24

I think they should be allowed in. They made a bigger impact on the sport than most. Everybody loves the home run.
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James
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Should Bonds, Sosa, McGuire and Clemens (and others) be in the hall of fame?

Post by James » 26 Jan 2022, 17:20

Here we go!
Caesar wrote:
26 Jan 2022, 08:38
The flip side of this is hypocrisy. David Ortiz was in the same list of players from 2003 that supposedly included Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, etc.
The big argument for this is that Ortiz played in the league with a drug policy for 13 seasons after that and never tested positive, including his incredible 2013 post season.

I've read a lot about this recently and since I'm a huge baseball fan it has interested me. I think there are two big arguments for Bonds (and others going in)

1) Baseball profited off of this. The man who blindly turned an eye to the home run chase that reinvigorated a sport as baseball was bleeding out in the fallout of the strike a few years earlier was introduced into the hall of fame. The real hipocracy is all his buddies and friends on the today's game committee gladly letting him in while the writers and others stand a "moral" high ground and refuse to let in these players. These writers would be out of jobs if it weren't for these players who put baseball back on the map when it was dying.

2) The hall of fame is about the history of the game. There are plenty of people in the hall who we would consider deplorable (and rightly so) by our standards today. That doesn't take away from what they did to/for the game in a positive manner. PEDs or not Barry Bonds is one of the greatest hitters of all time. To exclude him is to essentially whitewash the history of baseball and pretend that nothing happened. If the writers and others are going to be so prudish to not want him in at a minimum he should still be admitted and the steroid controversy should be included on his plaque description.

This is a good article that talks about it as well.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story?id=33138 ... -hall-fame
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