[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by elephony

I'm with Riverwolf. I'm all for keeping cheaters like Pete Rose out of the hall, who broke a rule their peers were all following. (I am, as others have voiced, pretty disgusted with how pro sports is currently embracing gambling for the money, but that is not the conversation we're having here.) Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, though, cheated in the exact same way most of their peers did. Their crime isn't the doping alone, or we would be as dismissive of 80% (at least) of the players who played during the steroid era, it's also the crime of being so good we have to contextualize their greatness in history, which makes it impossible to ignore the doping context. The person that should answer for the doping era is Bud Selig, who was happy to turn a blind eye because the press was so good for the home run chase after the 1994 strike (which was also his and the owners' fault). Bonds and Clemens are symptoms of the whole era, not causes. They were also jerks, but there are plenty of jerks in the Hall of Fame, that's no disqualification.

Clemens is my favorite all time pitcher (although Pedro Martinez is close). I think he, and Bonds, may have been voted into the HOF if they had admitted to PED use back in the day without drama.