The facts are the facts.
Barry Bonds hit 762 home runs, more than any player in major league history. He also won seven National League MVP awards — two with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1990 and ’92 — and was selected to 14 All-Star Games.
Roger Clemens won 354 games and seven Cy Young Awards. He was one of a handful of pitchers to be the American League MVP and also went to 11 All-Star Games.
Manny Ramirez had a .312 lifetime batting and 555 home runs. He was picked for 12 All-Star Games and won nine Silver Slugger awards.
All of that happened. It’s in the record book, or in today’s digital age, on Baseball-Reference.com.
How much chemical help Bonds, Clemens and Ramirez had during their careers is, of course, a big question.
Ramirez was suspended twice by MLB for violating its performance-enhancing drug policy. While Bonds and Clemens did not test positive for PEDs like Ramirez, both were implicated as being steroid users during two separate court trials.
Yet I put X’s next to all three of their names on my Hall of Fame ballot this year. My other votes went to Derek Jeter, Curt Schilling, Omar Vizquel and Larry Walker.
I have taken my share of criticism for voting for Bonds, Clemens and Ramirez. A certain segment of fans and media are adamant that all steroid users should be excluded from ever being immortalized in Cooperstown.
I understand and respect that viewpoint. However, I just can’t apply it to my ballot.
The biggest problem I have is no one knows for sure which players used steroids.
In 2002, late Houston Astros and San Diego Padres third baseman Ken Caminiti told Sports Illustrated he felt approximately 75% of major leaguers were using PEDs. In retrospect, knowing now what we didn’t know then about steroids, Caminiti might have been right.
It was standard routine 10-15 years ago for at least a couple of players to report to spring training packing 25-30 pounds of muscle they had developed during the offseason. They always claimed it was a result of changing their diet and/or workout routine.
In hindsight, it was obvious those players had almost certainly spent the winter juicing.
What bugs me, though, is when I hear someone say a certain player was “clean” and did it “the right way.”
How do we know? I’d be willing to bet at least some players who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame used PEDs.
Furthermore, MLB has had no problem letting players associated with steroid use back into the game.
Bonds was the Miami Marlins hitting coach in 2017 and serves as a guest instructor with the San Francisco Giants during spring training. Ramirez was a hitting consultant for the Chicago Cubs for two years. Clemens has been a spring training instructor for the Houston Astros.
Heck, Alex Rodriguez is a game analyst for ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” and a studio analyst for Fox during the World Series. He was suspended for more than a full season because of PEDs.
If MLB is fine with those guys being part of the game, then it’s fine by me if they go into the Hall of Fame.
The idea of PED users getting into the Hall of Fame can be debated into infinity. And the yearly debates about who should get into Cooperstown is a large part of what makes the voting process fascinating.
In the end, it comes down to the fact that I’m just a baseball writer, not a moralist. Bonds, Clemens and Ramirez are Hall of Famers to me.
After all, the facts are the facts.
