Baseball is a game of numbers, history, and legacy. It is also constantly evolving, and like it or not, performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) are part of that history. For the Hall of Fame to ignore its greatest players purely due to PED use is not only hypocritical, but a blow to the credibility of the Hall itself.
During the height of the steroid era, Major League Baseball (MLB) didn’t just fail to stop PED use, it actively turned a blind eye. League officials, owners, and fans watched offensive numbers skyrocket, power numbers surge, and TV ratings boom. The 1998 home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa brought baseball back into the spotlight after the 1994 strike, and MLB leadership had every reason to keep the show going. Testing was minimal, enforcement was weak, and players were rarely held accountable. It wasn’t until public backlash and congressional pressure mounted in the mid-2000s that the MLB finally started to take action, and by then, it was too late. The legacy and damage of the steroid era was already written into the record books.
David Ortiz is in the Hall of Fame, and in 2003 he tested positive for PEDs, yet voters still ushered him into Cooperstown on his first ballot. He is an all time great, and certainly deserving, but if Ortiz is worthy of induction despite a positive test, how can voters justify keeping out the likes of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and many others. Bonds is the all-time home run leader and Clemens is a seven-time Cy Young winner. These are not borderline candidates. These are all-time legends, and everyone knows it.
If the Hall of Fame wants to accurately represent the game of baseball, it can’t selectively ignore the parts of its history that are uncomfortable. Either all players who took PEDs are disqualified, or none of them are. You can’t have it both ways. Letting Ortiz in while keeping out other stars with the same problem makes the process appear inconsistent and biased. Baseball fans deserve a Hall of Fame that reflects reality, not a sanitized version of it. Greatness should be honored, even if it’s complicated. Let them in.
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