They’re about to announce the new inductees to Cooperstown for '09, so I thought this was topical again.
The players mentioned in the title and the other usual suspects belong in the HOF because they were the best of their era. They may have used PEDs, but PEDs don’t turn an average player into a great player. Jason Grimsley is Exhibit A.
If Bonds didn’t use PEDs he might have only hit 600 HRs(still HOF worthy) rather than breaking the all-time record. They used PEDs, but they played in the PED era. How many players used PEDs that we don’t know about because they didn’t get caught and they get in.
Rafael Palmiero is the problem for me, because he good player to a marginal HOFer via PEDs.
Eventually they will get in, as the moral outrage starts to fade with time. Even the supposedly “clean” players (Jeff Bagwell, for ex.) may get caught up in the whitewash, if only via guilt by association. The fans won’t stand for keeping an entire generation of players out of the Hall.
McGwire was before steroids were an issue. His proclaiming that he used Andro was the beginning of the cleanup of baseball. If he was not so evasive in front of congress ,he would have no trouble for getting into the hall.
Bonds has seen fit to deny any use over and over. We would all be shocked if he did not use. A simple blood test would have ended all his problems.
Steroids are used by guys who are just not quite good enough, to get and hang onto a position too. It is not just superstars who use.