Barry Bonds Dishonored Baseball. It Should Never Honor Him

by Julian Spivey
Every year now when the Baseball Hall of Fame results are announced there is a backlash among fans that Barry Bonds hasn’t been inducted into the hall of fame. Some fans even go so far as to say the hall of fame is “meaningless” without Bonds being inducted.
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It’s something that’s going to continue until Bonds either falls off the ballot after 10 years or until he’s finally voted in, which I believe will happen toward the end of his allotted tenure on the ballot. This year, in his sixth year on the ballot, Bonds received almost 54 percent of the vote, which is 21 percent below the 75 percent required for election.

I’ve never understood the uproar about Bonds not being inducted into the hall of fame. There isn’t an athlete in the history of sports who’s done more damage to his or her respective sport than Bonds. The only athletes that even come close are ones like Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez who followed in his performance enhancing drugs footsteps.

This is reason enough to keep Bonds out of the hall of fame, despite his bloated numbers and even though PEDs weren’t outlawed in baseball during his era. The Baseball Hall of Fame has an integrity clause in its rules that writers casting ballots are supposed to adhere to. The voting rules state: “voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.”

Many hate the integrity part of the voting rules because they claim the hall features a few bad guys from racists to criminals to what have you … and they’re right. The hall of fame does have members who were less than stellar people. But, those individuals didn’t harm the game of baseball. Bonds did. He ruined what I always considered to be the greatest record in all of sports – the home run record. For decades the sport had Hank Aaron, a shining beacon of everything the game is supposed to be, atop the mountain. Then Bonds came along with his drugs and destroyed it. 

I have never been able to understand the mindset that people who believe Bonds should be in the hall of fame have. I don’t believe it’s something I’m ever going to understand. It’s a moral issue for me. He destroyed something so pure and so special. And, he has no qualms about it. There’s nothing honorable about how Bonds played the game. So, why should he have a plaque beside players like Aaron and Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson and Lou Gehrig? 

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