Should Barry Bonds Be In Baseball's Hall of Fame?

Barry Bonds deserves to be in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Keeping baseball's greatest player ever out is like no Michael Jordan in the Basketball Hall of Fame. However, Bonds is part of a group of Major League Baseball greats on the outside looking in.

It’s silly to pretend Bonds isn’t the greatest power hitter in the modern era. He owns the Major League's career home run record, finishing his final year with 762 dingers. He earned more walks than anyone in history, because he's the most feared hitter ever.

It’s just as silly to pretend Bonds didn’t evolve from a point guard's physique into an NFL linebacker. The Bay Area Hulk's head even changed shape during his career.

Before the California native was the size of a WWE wrestler hitting bombs at AT&T Park, he was on track for a Hall-of-Fame career with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The sixth pick in the 1985 MLB Draft won the 1990 and 1992 National League Most Valuable Player award with the Pirates. Bonds hit at least 30 home runs, stole 30 bases, and hit higher than .300 in each of those seasons.

What Bonds did with the San Francisco Giants was unfathomable — He hit 586 home runs from his first until his last year at 42 years old. In 2001, he broke Mark McGwire's single-season home run record. Bonds' team made the playoffs four times, and he walloped eight homers in the 2002 postseason before losing the World Series.

Explain to how these honors are kept out of Cooperstown; Seven-time MVP, 14-time All-Star, eight-time Gold Glove, 12-time Silver Slugger, and three-time Major League Player of the Year

Maybe you cried , "Steroid Use!" That's fine. It's the same opinion held by a majority of fans and members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), who vote on potential inductees.

The U.S. government reportedly found a positive drug test of Bonds in a 2007 raid of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), a supplements lab in California whose clients allegedly consisted of many MLB players.

Bonds did nothing but deny performance-enhancing drug use until 2011, saying he was misled by his personal trainer; He says he never tested positive by the MLB.

Still, many players tied to steroids may never get in. Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Manny Ramirez all fell short of the required 75 percent of the vote.

Others like Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro were never close and fell off the Hall of Fame ballot. Longtime New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter was a lock among first-time candidates in 2020, joining five-time All-Star Larry Walker, whose 383 career home runs are barely half Bonds' total.

Five players, including Mariano Rivera, were inducted in 2019. Bonds fell short of the 75 percent needed, as did Clemens, who won an incredible seven Cy Young awards.

The San Francisco Giants legend deserves a spot in Cooperstown, even if that means an asterisk on his plaque. It's time for Barry to become immortalized.

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