The Bonds-Clemens Hall of Fame Conundrum

Should the BBWAA vote for Bonds and Clemens for the Hall of Fame?

This time of year, for the third time, nearly 600 members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) must ponder the question: should they vote for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens for the Hall of Fame?  We’re talking about two of the greatest players in the history of the game, a player who hit more home runs than Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron and won 7 Most Valuable Player trophies.   We’re talking about a 7-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher with 354 career wins, 3^rd most in the last 100 years.   And of course, we’re also talking about two of the seven biggest poster children for the abuses of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED’s) during what we now dub the “steroid era.”

Since you might be wondering who the other members of what you could call the “Steroid Seven” are, I give you Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Manny Ramirez.   With Clemens being the only pitcher in this bunch, the six position players occupy 6 of the top 14 positions on the all-time home run list.   If you want to add an eighth, Gary Sheffield, owner of 509 lifetime home runs, joins the ballot for the first time this year and, because he was one of the 98 players named Mitchell Report on steroids in 2007 (along with Bonds, Clemens and Palmeiro), he may last only one year on this crowded ballot, as he may not get even 5% of the necessary votes to remain on eligible for future BBWAA elections.

Rafael Palmeiro had a long and productive career, with 569 home runs and 3,020 hits.  He also was hit with a 10-game suspension when he tested positive under baseball’s new PED policy in 2005. He wagged his finger at the famous Congressional hearing in 2005, emphatically claiming that he never took steroids but this one positive test at the twilight of his career was enough for the baseball writers to drum him off the Hall of Fame ballot after just four years.

Mark McGwire, when testifying in front of Congress, never denied using steroids, just saying that he “didn’t want to talk about the past.”  In the court of public opinion, this was an admission of guilt and, in eight years on the Cooperstown ballot, has seen his support drop from a high of 24% to just 11% a year ago (it takes 75% of the writers’ vote to be inducted into Cooperstown).  Incidentally, McGwire did admit to using PED’s in January 2010, and has since acknowledged and accepted the reality that he wont be getting into the Hall.

Sammy Sosa, who also testified in front of Congress that he had not used steroids, is likely to be knocked off the Hall of Fame ballot this year.  He never had a positive test under the drug policy, but he was named in a New York Times report as one of 104 players who tested positive in a 2003 “survey test” that was agreed upon by MLB and the Players Association to determine how rampant the problem was.   This test was never supposed to be made public, but the Times let the cat out of the bag and the vast majority of writers or sports fans believed that Sosa’s 292-HR rampage from 1998-2002 was aided by some juice.  Sosa debuted on the Hall of Fame ballot two years ago with 12.5% of the vote, dropped to 7.2% last year and will likely be slammed off the ballot with less than 5% of the vote when this year’s tally is announced in January.

With Palmeiro, McGwire and Sosa having been shunned by the Hall’s writing voters and Rodriguez and Ramirez not yet eligible, the focus is squarely on Bonds and Clemens, with Sheffield eligible for the first time.

It’s easy to explain McGwire’s and Sosa’s exploits (and to a lesser extent Palmeiro’s) as steroid creations.  The great home run chase of 1998 mesmerized the nation as these two sluggers blew past Roger Maris’ 27-year old record of 61 home runs in a single season.  It was thrilling to watch but there was always a hint of suspicion that virtually no fan or media member wanted to give voice to.  It somehow seemed too good to be true and too good to be clean.  When reports came out years later linking Big Mac and Slamming Sammy to steroids, the prevailing reaction was “well, of course, it all makes sense now.  These guys weren’t really that good.”  In reality it’s much more complicated than that, there were many factors in the game that boosted power numbers throughout the majors, but it’s easy today to rationalize the cartoonish home run numbers as the intended byproduct of scientific engineering.

Bonds and Clemens are in a different category altogether.  Their greatness as players is not so easily dismissed as pharmaceutical creations for the very specific reason that they each had established themselves as the top players of their profession before they allegedly started juicing up.  According to the work of investigative journalists as well as congressional testimony, Bonds started taking steroids after the 1998 season, possibly in part as a reaction to all of the attention McGwire and Sosa were getting from their long-ball binges.  Bonds did not partake in the 2005 Congressional hearing because he had already offered grand jury testimony in 2003 regarding BALCO (he was later convicted for obstruction of justice for not being entirely, shall we say, “helpful” in that probe).

As for Clemens, according to the testimony of former trainer Brian MacNamee in his federal trial for perjury (in which he was acquitted, by the way), Clemens first got a “booty shot” from MacNamee in June of 1998.  So let’s take Clemens’ record through 1997 and Bonds’ through 1998.  What would their final career numbers have been if they had retired after those seasons rather than continuing their careers with (allegedly) medical assistance?

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BARRY BONDS

Barry Bonds (through his age 33 season in 1997):

411 HR, 1,216 RBI

1,364 Runs, 445 SB

.966 OPS, 164 OPS+ (see sidebar)

99.6 WAR (see sidebar)

3 MVP’s

8 Gold Gloves

8 All-Star Games

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ROGER CLEMENS

Roger Clemens (through his age 34 season in 1997):

213-188 W-L (.644)

109 CG, 41 shutouts

2.97 ERA, 149 ERA+ (see sidebar)

93.2 WAR

3 Cy Young Awards

1986 A.L. MVP

6 All-Star Games

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Putting the “pre-steroid” numbers of Bonds and Clemens into context, it is clear how remarkable their careers already were before they allegedly started using PED’s.

Clemens’ WAR of 93.2 through 1997 would still be good enough for 11^th place in the
history of baseball among pitchers at the time.  His ERA+ of 149 through 1997 was, at
the time, the best in the history of baseball.  (In reality, Clemens “regressed” a little bit in the next 10 years, lowering his ERA+ to 143, which is still the 6th best ever).  These particular statistics are recent creations of course and didn’t exist in 1997 but Clemens had already won three Cy Young awards, an MVP trophy, and led the AL five times in the ERA (Earned Runs Average) that we grew up knowing how to figure out with a calculator (Earned runs per 9 innings pitched).

Bonds’ WAR of 99.6 through 1998 would have been good enough for 19^th all-time at that point in history, behind 18 Hall of Famers.  The only player among the next 20 after who is not in Cooperstown is Pete Rose.  His 164+ OPS would have placed him 10^th in the career record books through the ’98 season.  Regarding his more tangible accomplishments, he was already a 3-time MVP winner and the only player in the history of baseball to hit over 400 home runs (411) and steal over 400 bases (445). The older and much bulkier version of Bonds, by the way, only stole 69 more bases in the final 9 years of his career.

So, it’s fairly obvious, with all of their accomplishments, both players would have easily been first-ballot Hall of Famers if they had just hung up their spikes before they ever (allegedly) used any PED’s.  They would have still amassed staggering statistics if they had stayed clean until the end of their playing days. And it’s for that reason that I believe that both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens should be in Cooperstown.  However, if I was a member of the BBWAA and I had a vote to make this week, I would not include either Bonds or Clemens on my ballot.   Let me explain the contradiction.

First of all, let’s get out of the way the obvious reason why they aren’t in the Hall of Fame yet: the preponderance of evidence shows that both players did in fact use steroids, which were and are illegal in this country then and now.  They attempted to gain a competitive advantage over other players who were “clean.”  Essentially, the anti-Bonds-Clemens argument is that they were dishonest cheaters.  This is the same reason why the voters have almost unilaterally rejected McGwire, Sosa and Palmeiro.  The only reason why Bonds and Clemens have gained about 35% of the vote in their two years of eligibility is that there are voters who recognize, as I just chronicled, that these two men were so great as baseball players that there is no shadow of a doubt that their Cooperstown resumes were not a product of steroids, their resumes were merely enhanced by them.  There are hundreds (possibly thousands) of players who used PED’s.  They didn’t all hit 763 home runs or win 354 games.

However, it is very difficult to argue against a position that says “they cheated; they don’t deserve to be rewarded with a plaque in Cooperstown.”  While there is no excuse for what they did, you have to remember the culture of baseball in the late 1990’s.  There was no drug testing in the sport, the fans didn’t seem to care, the media didn’t seem to care, Commissioner Bud Selig didn’t seem to care.  Everybody was so caught up in the home run show that they/we all turned a blind eye to what was so apparent for anybody to see.  Look at it from Bonds’ and Clemens’ standpoint: “everybody else is doing it, Selig doesn’t care, why shouldn’t I keep up with the Sosas and McGwires and show them how good I am?  I’m better than the rest of these guys!”

Imagine that you’re driving on the interstate at the speed limit of 65 miles per hour.  Dozens of cars pass you by at 75 miles per hour.  You see a state trooper just sitting there on the side of the road, waiting for the 90-mile-per-hour speed demon.  Wouldn’t you be tempted to push your speedometer up to 75?  Is there anybody reading who hasn’t actually done this?  It’s against the law, but we all do it because it’s de facto acceptable to do it.  We’re a society that elects presidents who have admitted that they broke the law.  Barack Obama wrote about snorting cocaine in his autobiography, George W. Bush had a DWI and Bill Clinton took marijuana (but didn’t inhale, allegedly, hee hee).  Nobody cared.  The culture of baseball in 1998, regarding PED’s, was “anything goes.”

It’s hard to feel sorry for players who earned tens or hundreds of millions of dollars playing a child’s game, but I do feel sad for Bonds, and Clemens, and McGwire, and Sosa, and Palmeiro.  I met them all during my ESPN days and liked each one but Bonds, but he was a little gruff with most of the media.  Clemens and Sosa in particular were delightful when they joined our Up Close studio set in Hollywood.  I regard this whole torrid affair as an unnecessary tragedy.

What these players did was tolerated when they did it.  The after the fact witch hunt ensnared them and others by imposing a retroactive morality towards their misdeeds.  Well, that retroactive justice does not mean that they have to return their MVP or Cy Young trophies, it doesn’t mean their teams are stripped of their World Series titles (not that there were any titles for Bonds, Sosa or Palmiero).  This is not Lance Armstrong justice.  The only justice left to impose on these men is by the judge and jury known as the Baseball Writers Association of America.  They have rendered their decision and the verdict is to deny each and every one of them entrance into the Hall of Fame.

In his first year of Hall of Fame eligibility, Clemens earned 38% of the writers’ votes, barely half of the 75% needed for induction.  Bonds tallied 36% in his first year.  The next year, both men earned about 35% of the vote.  Many pundits felt that the first year vote was one of “making a statement” of disapproval and that, in the second year, the vote totals would significantly increase.  Instead, the pro-Bonds-Clemens camp remained virtually intact and the anti-Bonds-Clemens camp remained intact as well.  So what we have is a stalemate.  Most players’ ballot totals fluctuate from year to year.  Writers study a player’s career further and decide to change their votes from “yes” to “no” or vice versa.   Bert Blyleven gained just 17.5% of the vote in 1998 but, as time passed and supporters made convincing arguments, he eventually gained enshrinement on his 14^th try with nearly 80% support.  Blyleven’s is just one of the most recent examples, it’s happened throughout the history of Hall of Fame voting.

With Bonds and Clemens, nobody is quibbling over whether their statistics are Cooperstown worthy.  Of course they were.  So the vote for or against Bonds or Clemens is not about whether they’re two of the best ten players on the ballot (they’re the best two, by far).  The vote is strictly about morality, do they deserve to gain induction in spite of their sins or should they be denied because of them.  This is like the abortion debate, albeit with lower stakes.  Some people believe that abortion is murder; others believe that nobody has the right to tell a woman what she can do with her body.  It’s pretty hard to sway people from those two deeply held convictions.  In our lifetimes we may never get 75% of the population to agree on this issue.  It’s hard to get 75% of the people to agree on anything and there’s no chance, no chance whatsoever, that the Bonds-Clemens support (which has been steady around 35% for two cycles) is going to more than double in the next 8 years.

OK, now that we’ve established what’s happened so far and my personal belief that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were so far and away better than their clean or dirty peers that they belong in Cooperstown, why am I also advocating that the current group of writers not vote for either men (or McGwire and Sosa for that matter)?

The reason is simple pragmatism.  Bonds and Clemens and not going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame through the writers’ ballots.  Period.  You would have to change the minds of half of the “against” voters and that is simply not going to happen.  Each of the nearly 600 members of the BBWAA who are eligible to vote can vote for up to ten players.  They can also vote for as few as they want.  Anybody who votes for Bonds or Clemens is essentially limiting themselves to eight votes for players who have a fighting chance for enshrinement.  The problem is that there are currently 10-to-20 other players on the ballot who had careers worthy of serious Cooperstown consideration.  The PED boys’ continued presence on the ballot is creating a backlog.  It’s making the math harder and harder for anybody but a “no-doubter” candidate to make it.

This year, pitchers Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez will almost certainly get elected, and will be on the ballots of virtually every writer who is serious about the honor of voting.  So anybody who votes for Johnson or Martinez and also votes for Bonds or Clemens has only six spaces left to choose among the remaining 15 or so worthy choices.  Many pundits also believe that John Smoltz will be a first-ballot selection, leaving only five choices left for Bonds-Clemens voters.

Besides the ballot-clogging votes for Bonds, Clemens, McGwire and Sosa, other players are still on the outside looking in because of the difficulty of any voter paring 15-to-20 candidates down to 10.  Craig Biggio, owner of 3,060 hits (most for a 2nd baseman since Eddie Collins, who retired in 1930) fell an excruciating two votes short of induction last year.  Because most writers’ ballots aren’t made public, it’s hard to say how many voters left Biggio off the ballot but did include Bonds and Clemens, but it’s certainly much more than two.  It is perfectly reasonable for these writers to have made this choice: Bonds and Clemens were light years better than Craig Biggio ever dreamed of being but the question now is this: will these writers stubbornly continue to mark Bonds and Clemens on their ballots instead of two other worthy choices now that anybody can see plainly that they’re not going to get into the Hall through the BBWAA?

By the way, it’s not just Bonds, Clemens, McGwire and Sosa who are tainted by PED’s on the ballot.  Gary Sheffield joins them this year and two other players, Mike Piazza and Jeff Bagwell, are still on the ballot because of currently unsubstantiated “suspicions” of PED use.  In the minds of some voters, they are guilty until proven innocent.  Piazza earned 62% of the vote last year, Bagwell 54%.

So with so many star players (clean or otherwise) clogging up the ballot, excellent players like Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina, Edgar Martinez, Tim Raines, Fred McGriff, Larry Walker, Alan Trammell and Jeff Kent are getting lost in the shuffle because voters cannot vote for more than ten players.  As I established in my last article (“The Over-Crowded 2015 Hall of Fame Ballot”), there are 24 players with legitimate Cooperstown resumes.  I’m not suggesting that all 24 should be enshrined, but it is a documentable fact that all 24 were better baseball players than many others who already have plaques.

So my advice to the voters is this: if you believe that Bonds and Clemens belong in Cooperstown (as I do) but also believe that there are at least ten other players who deserve it as well, then leave Bonds and Clemens off your ballots.  They’re not going to get in anyway, so help the cause of other worthy players who have, so far, been the Cooperstown collateral damage of the steroid era.  If you’re a voter who is a Hall of Fame hard-liner, if you don’t think there are more than 8 other players worthy of induction, then go ahead and vote for them if you please.

The counter-argument to what I’m proposing is that it lacks integrity, that voters should select the 10 men who they feel are the most worthy candidates and that the should not “game” the system.  Intellectually, I agree with that position but the problem is this: in the normal Hall of Fame voting universe, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens would not be on the ballot every year, as they are likely to be for eight more.  They would have been elected in their first year, as Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas were one year ago.  So, unless voters are permitted to vote for more than 10 players, the system is already broken and “gaming” it is the best way to keep other players from suffering for the sins of the PED users. Incidentally, the Hall is contemplating allowing writers to vote for 12 players starting next year, which would be a big help.

One final note, this regarding Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, who are still on the ballot but received so little support last year (McGwire at 11%, Sosa at 7%), that they have a high risk of dropping off future ballots completely by falling short of the necessary 5% threshold.  If you’re a voter wrestling with the decision of whether to leave off the 8^th and 10^th leading home run hitters of all time and the stars of the thrilling 1998 home run chase, I’m going to make it easy: there are so many good players on the 2015 ballot that McGwire and Sosa are not among the ten best.  Using WAR (Wins Above Replacement), they are the 14^th and 17^th best players on this ballot.  Now, I do not worship at the temple of WAR, I consider it a flawed statistic, but it does give food for thought and it’s an easy way to justify not voting for players who have so little support now that their chances of getting elected are zero anyway.  As with Bonds and Clemens, the majority of BBWAA writers have rendered their verdict, the verdict is “guilty” for all four men and there’s no reason to fight that battle when there are other players worthy of the honor of enshrinement into Cooperstown.