Cooperstown Candidates: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens

The beginning of a series examining the candidates eligible for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The writers' ballots are due by December 31st and the Class of 2013 will be announced in early January.

This year's Hall of Fame ballot is easily the strongest ever. The returnees include Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, Mark McGwire, and Edgar Martinez. But those All-Stars are nothing compared to two all-time greats joining them on the ballot for the first time. One of them has the most MVP Awards in baseball history; the other has the most Cy Young Awards in baseball history. They are arguably the best hitter and the best pitcher the game has ever seen. Yet almost certainly, neither player is going to earn enough votes to gain enshrinement in Cooperstown, either this year or in the foreseeable future.

Because their names are Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

If this was only about the numbers, there wouldn't be a debate. Bonds and Clemens would be unanimous first-ballot inductees. Here's why, as concisely as their extensive accomplishments will allow.

In career Wins Above Replacement, Bonds clocks in as the second-best position player ever, behind only -- you guessed it -- Babe Ruth. Bonds reached base safely more times than any other player in history besides Pete Rose. He won seven Most Valuable Player Awards; no other player has ever won more than three. He is, of course, the all-time home run champion, both single-season (73) and career (762). He ranks third all-time in runs scored, fourth all-time in runs batted in, and fourth all-time in total bases. He finished just 65 hits short of the 3,000 milestone for his career. He stole bases too; a total of 514 in his career, at a 78% success rate. Defense? He won eight Gold Glove Awards in the outfield.

Bonds is most famous (and infamous) for being the home run king, but the statistic he truly dominated was the walk, an under-appreciated skill when he played. He walked 2,558 times in his career, easily the most all-time and several hundred more than second-place Rickey Henderson. He also holds the record for career intentional walks at 688. No one else even has 300. In 2001, Bonds set the record for walks in a single season with 177. In 2002, he broke his own record with 198. In 2004, he broke his own record again, with 232. Two hundred and thirty two walks. (By comparison, Adam Dunn led all of baseball in walks last year...with 105.) Bonds' on-base-percentage during that record-breaking year was .609, the all-time single-season record. He was also 39 years old.

His career on-base percentage (.444) is sixth-best all-time, and his career slugging percentage (.607) is also sixth-best all-time, leading to a mind-boggling career on-base-plus-slugging (OPS) of 1.051, the fourth-best ever. He trails only Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Lou Gehrig in this department.

Bonds also happens to own four of the eight best OPS seasons of all time. Those four seasons all came consecutively, from 2001 to 2004, when Bonds put together the single greatest offensive stretch that the sport has ever seen. Over that four-year span, his average OPS was 1.368 thanks to a .349/.559/.809 line; he also hit a total of 209 home runs and walked a total of 755 times. He won the MVP all four years. Bonds single-handedly dominated baseball to a degree not seen since Babe Ruth out-homered entire teams almost a hundred years ago. Yeah, Barry Bonds was good at baseball.

The case for Roger Clemens is almost as simple. In terms of Wins Above Replacement among pitchers, Clemens is third-best all-time, behind only Walter Johnson and Cy Young. He won the Cy Young Award seven times, an unmatched feat. His first was all the way back in 1986 (when he also won the MVP) at the age of 23 and his last was in 2004 at the age of 41. He led his league in ERA seven times. He led his league in strikeouts six times. His ERA was below 3.00 in 12 different seasons. He posted dominant statistics across three different decades and in both leagues.

The most impressive thing about Clemens, besides his longevity? He pitched at least half of his career in the heart of the steroid era, when offensive numbers were at their insane peak. He still managed to post a career ERA of 3.12 across nearly 5,000 innings. And he didn't get lucky, either: he finished with 4,672 strikeouts, the third-most all-time behind only Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson.

So it wouldn't be very controversial to say that Roger Clemens is one of the five best pitchers of all time, and perhaps the best in the modern era. It would be even less controversial to say that Barry Bonds is one of the three best position players of all time, and undoubtedly the best in the modern era. Their Hall of Fame cases should be slam dunks. Instead, these two men will have to sweat it out because of three awful words: performance-enhancing drugs.

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens cheated. They cheated at baseball by injecting themselves with steroids. We don't know this for an absolute fact, but we think we're as sure as we can possibly be. What we do know for an absolute fact is that the baseball writers hate steroid-users when it comes to Hall of Fame voting. Mark McGwire admitted he took steroids, and hasn't even sniffed a respectable vote total yet. Jeff Bagwell is still waiting on the ballot despite an obvious Hall of Fame career just because some people suspect him of using steroids, without any actual proof. Obviously, the baseball writers become very sanctimonious about allowing cheaters into the Hall (proven or otherwise). Why? Because of this clause in the official Hall of Fame voting guidelines:

Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the team(s) on which the player played.

Integrity, sportsmanship, character. These abstract concepts are the justification used to keep the steroid users out of the Hall. "Allowing Bonds and Clemens into the Hall would destroy the sanctity of the game," the writers say.

Here's the problem with that: there is no sanctity in baseball. Pretending such a thing exists is folly. Baseball banned non-whites from playing. Baseball handed out amphetamines like candy. The Hall is full of racists, criminals, segregationists, cheaters, alcoholics, bat-corkers, and drug-users. The 1951 New York Giants won the pennant thanks to an elaborate sign-stealing system that might have helped Bobby Thompson hit the most famous home run in history. The writers who would keep Clemens and Bonds out of the Hall are oddly silent about Ty Cobb's virulent racism, or Gaylord Perry's admission that he cheated by doctoring the ball. By today's rules, if a player is caught using a performance-enhancing drug, the official punishment handed down by Major League Baseball in the case of a first offense is a 25-game suspension. No mention of a ban from the Hall of Fame. Why the selective morality? Why now? Why Bonds and Clemens?

The Hall of Fame is not a church. It is a museum. It keeps a record of baseball's best players from every era, no matter how tainted. Bonds and Clemens dominated the game for twenty years. Leaving them out, while inducting far more mediocre players like Jack Morris and Jim Rice, would be laughable.

I suppose it's acceptable to use steroids as an excuse to exclude borderline players like Sammy Sosa or Rafael Palmeiro, who might not have been Hall of Fame players without artificial assistance. But using steroids as an excuse to exclude two of the greatest players of all time? Ridiculous. Sure, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens aren't model citizens. They are, however, Hall of Famers. Without a shred of doubt.

My Ballot, As of Now:
1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens