Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens may be off the Hall of Fame ballot, but the never-ending debate over their legacy will continue to seep through. Bencjacobs writes on the new normal of Hall voting
. The third baseman, probably best known for his time on the St. Louis Cardinals, cleared the 75 percent threshold by a mere five votes, and the debate over whether he deserved the prize came fast and furious. The arguments weren’t about steroid use , nor were they about his morals or anything that weighty. Instead, the jockeying had a reassuringly pre-PED quality, centering around the question of whether he’s really a baseball immortal or simply very good.
On one hand, this feels like a refreshing return to the pre–steroid era, back to some level of ordinary. On the other, the debate over performance-enhancing drugs hasn’t gone away. Alex Rodriguez, whose only competition for greatest shortstop in history led the league in batting, remains mired on the ballot, bearing the indelible stain of a multiyear suspension for steroid use. He’s not the only PED-era star left who’s up for consideration.
This has left baseball fans in an awkward, uncertain place. It’s now almost possible to bypass the fraught subject of steroids and the Wild West period baseball experienced two decades ago. One can go back to bickering over old standbys, like how many Silver Slugger Awards cancel out an Iron Glove in the field, and some newer conundrums, like how, a perfectly fine player, was somehow considered good enough by a 2019 iteration of the Veterans Committee to get the nod.
But there is still something not quite right. As much as it is easy to pretend things are normal, Cooperstown is now a place where some of the greatest players in the game’s history are simply not there, as if they never existed. At a time when the national pastime is dwindling in cultural relevance, this hardly seems ideal.
There are no easy answers for how to reckon with the steroids era, but it’s clear that even without the most problematic players on the ballot, their legacy still lurks over the process. After all, those skeptical of Rolen’s credentials and seeking to have an old-fashioned baseball argument could point out that, even in, he did not receive the Most Valuable Player Award — the winner that year was Bonds.
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