Major League Baseball should allow steroid users into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. By not doing so, the Hall of Fame is choosing to eliminate important pieces of the history of baseball and undermine achievements that shaped the way we view baseball today.
The Baseball Hall of Fame’s mission is, according to its website, to “preserve the sport’s history, honor excellence within the game and make a connection between the generations of people who enjoy baseball.”
By eliminating steroid users from the Hall of Fame, we are essentially eliminating an entire generation of baseball history, thereby failing to preserve the mission and point of the Hall of Fame to begin with.
Doing so eliminates the history of Barry Bonds and his historic 762 home runs. Doing so would eliminate the great career that David Ortiz has had in Boston and the impact that Alex Rodriguez had in Yankee pinstripes.
Those careers weren’t just numbers. They entertained crowds for years and affected the outcome of World Series and pennant races. Ortiz helped end the Boston Red Sox’s World Series curse by bringing home the World Series in 2004 over the Cardinals. He did it again in 2007 and 2013 and put the Red Sox on the map as a power again. Rodriguez helped the Yankees win a World Series in 2009 over the Philadelphia Phillies, delivering a game-winning double off Phillies closer Brad Lidge in Game 4.
This is baseball history and just wiping it away from the Hall of Fame is a gross mistake.
While the use of steroids was banned in 1991, testing for them didn’t start until 2003, making it impossible to know the extent of how many players were doping and how many statistics were tainted.
Jose Canseco, a player who has been shamed and vilified for his steroid use, estimated that around 85 percent of MLB players were using steroids during his career. So if 85 percent of the league is using, how is it right to only eliminate the amount of players who were caught in this instance? It is impossible to tell whether great players that loaded up the stat sheets in previous years were using because Major League Baseball wasn’t testing. How is it possible to know if greats like Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Nolan Ryan or Rickey Henderson were using steroids during their career? The simple answer is that it’s not.
Yes, they cheated. Every player that ever took steroids after 1991 cheated. But this is part of the history of baseball that we should keep and protect. The contributions that players like Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens, Bonds, Rodriguez and Ortiz made to the game and to the fan bases of the teams they played for will forever be remembered by the people that were there to witness it. For those that weren’t, they will never know the whole story of the history of baseball because of the Hall of Fame voters’ irresponsible decision to keep them out.
