The Juicers Should Not Be in the Hall of Fame, but Not as a Punishment
Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa. These are all names that fall under two lists.
1: PED users in MLB’s steroid era.
2. Some of the greatest players in MLB history to not reach the Hall of Fame.
Omission from the National Baseball Hall of Fame has long been a mode of punishment for baseball’s worst rule-breakers. For Shoeless Joe Jackson, while the consensus is that he never fixed games, his lifetime ban came with a ban from the Hall of Fame. For Pete Rose, his gambling led him to miss out too despite being a 17x All-Star and career leader in base hits. So, in the late 2000s when these known steroid-using players became eligible for Hall of Fame consideration the baseball writers split into factions. The majority believed that since these players cheated, they should be kept out of the Hall of Fame without exception. The enlightened minority understood that a large portion of the league, pitchers included, were using steroids during that time, so doping to stay relevant shouldn't tarnish one’s entire career. Due to this split, however, none of the MLB junkies made the Hall of Fame and they likely never will. The thing with the “enlightened minority” I mentioned earlier is that they’re right in saying the PED users don’t deserve a Hall of Fame snub, but they were wrong to vote for them on their ballots.
The fact of the matter is that if all of the league’s best players are doping, in effect, none of them are. If Barry Bonds couldn't use steroids and neither could the rest of the MLB, he still likely would have been the league’s best player. Maybe not the greatest player of all time, which truthfully he is, but still great. Roger Clemens may not have struck out 20 batters in a game without juicing, but he still would be a multiple-time Cy Young winner deserving of a plaque in the Hall of Fame.
The issue isn’t with how deserving these players are; it’s with how we misunderstand what the Hall of Fame is. Those who believe the users should be banned from the Hall due to their cheating are in the mindset that the Hall of Fame is a personal achievement more than anything else. They see it as a line that a player gets to add to their Wikipedia or Baseball-Reference page. What the Hall of Fame should be is a window into MLB history. Take William “Candy” Cummings. He was hardly an all-time great. He pitched for six seasons at a level of run-prevention just 14% above league average, the same as Aaron Nola. A good player, for sure, but not an all-time great. He was inducted for inventing the curveball, a piece of baseball history the MLB wanted to memorialize. The MLB does not want to memorialize an era where nearly every great player was breaking the rules under the league’s nose and the league did nothing about it.
Is this fair to the superstars of the steroid era who had to juice to succeed? I am of the mind that it is not. I am, however, of the mind that it is best to forget this embarrassing time in baseball’s history, so however unfair it is to the players, they should be kept out of the Hall of Fame.