Steroids and the Hall of Fame: My 2021 Take

My views on steroids have evolved over time. At my core, I hate cheaters. Integrity is an extremely important value of mine, and I try to embody it in everything I do. In high school, I made the varsity team but rarely played simply because most other players were bigger, faster, and stronger than me, clocking in at about 5'8" and 160 pounds. That's not an excuse, and plenty of players smaller than me have succeeded; it's just reality. So when I see guys cheating to get an edge, it really sits wrong with me. And it really does damage the game, so for a while, I was a straight up "no" on steroid users, including Bonds and Clemens.

However, I also have to look at reality. As much as I wish it wasn't, cheating is as much a part of the game as sunflower seeds and eye black. Pitchers have been hiding files and pine tar and who knows what else in their gloves since they started wearing them, and we know many stars of the 1950's and 1960's were hopped up on amphetamines. The recent Astros scandal may be the most publicized, but we know that electronic sign stealing goes far beyond Carlos Beltran and Alex Cora in the game's history.

So if Willie Mays, Ted Williams, and countless other "cheaters" are Hall of Famers, what's to say Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are any different? They're two of the best ever to play the game, roids or no roids. And we know that MLB was, at least tacitly, encouraging the use of steroids during the late 1990's and early 2000's, and the man in charge of baseball at the time is now in the Hall of Fame. For players whose Hall of Fame-worthy production was likely a product of steroids, such as Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, and Mark McGwire, I do not believe they should gain admission. Steroids in that era should not keep Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens out of the Hall, because they clearly would have made it even without taking them, but they shouldn't put someone like McGwire over the hump.

Lastly, we have a new category of steroid use showing up in Manny Ramirez that will continue in the future with names like Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano. That's usage in the post-steroid era where the line between right and wrong was not nearly as blurred. With that, we obviously have to go case by case. For a borderline player, that's an automatic "no" for me. For one with a clear or fairly clear HoF resume such as Ramirez, I think if it's plausible that it was one mistake and that their career was not a product of steroids, they should still get in. Of course, that doesn't apply to Ramirez himself, since he tested positive twice. But I do value "innocent until proven guilty," and that's why you'll see Gary Sheffield on my ballot.