My favorite of a few Barry Bonds autographs in my collection. 2016 Topps Transcendent. I don’t love the round portrait, but the autographs always look nice in this set.
By now you have heard about Barry Bonds and the Hall of Fame. This past week, Bonds failed to get the requisite 12 votes from the Baseball Hall of Fame’s 16-person Today’s Game Era committee.
My opinion? He deserves to be in. Both he and Roger Clemens. I get the PED issue. I really do. But this is not like Pete Rose. Major League Baseball never took PED use seriously until 2003. And I am very confident that baseball assented to its use since steriods almost certainly were powering the late-90s home run binge, highlighted by the 1998 home run chase, that helped get baseball back in America’s good graces. I think MLB brass, team ownership, players, and the press all looked the other way. It’s stupid. And the sanctimonious braying of the press seems, at best, disingenuous.
And there is this: if he was a borderline case, whatever. Keep him out. But we are not talking about Ellis Burks or Fred McGriff. Bonds is, by some metrics, the greatest player to ever live. His career WAR is 168.8, which is .1 higher than Babe Ruth. And his awards resume is bonkers: seven MVP awards, 14 All-Star selections, eight Gold Gloves, 12 Silver Sluggers, two batting titles, and is the all-time leader in single-season home runs (73), career home runs (762), walks (2,558), and intentional walks (688).
And just for good measure: according to Baseball Reference, his “Black Ink” score, which synthesizes his major career numbers into a score that reflects his HOF credentials, is 69. The average HOF player’s score? 27.