Should steroid use determine who is in the HOF?
 

With the recent Roger Clemens decision, whether players that have been involved with steroids should be part of the baseball HOF has come back into the discussion. Thus far the writers have sent a resounding no to that answer.

Keep in mind that part of the criteria for the baseball hall deals with off the field issues as well. Players like Orlando Cepeda were kept out of the hall for years because of their connections to drugs while borderline players like Keith Hernandez did not even come close to election. The All-time hits king is not even eligible because of betting on baseball.

BTW, there is no Gaz option. If you don't like baseball or don't care about this issue, why are you even reading this?

I think it should be a determining criteria. The standard needs to be uniform across the board though. Although he was a great player I would personally remove Ty Cobb if you want to start using character as a criteria to join.

No....

Its baseball.. Steriods mean as much to Baseball as the American Flag does to the United States...

Steroids or not, those people still went out and did what they did against others using the same shit.

Why have HRs gone down in recent years compared to the 90s and early 2000's??

Bonds will get in because the writers don't want to be called racists. Once they let him in it's going to allow Clemens and others to get in.

There are probably a lot of factors involved. Average hitters are not getting $10 million contracts. Average pitchers are. Steroids, umpires, the ball could all be factors in that. Baseball never really studies that and we wouldn't know for years anyway, by which time the cycle may run back to the hitters.

Not a chance that will have anything to do with it.

steroids doesn't improve hand/eye coord.

No. But it makes you build muscle, with makes you stronger, which can give you a quicker bat swing/more power.

There was an interesting argument on Dan Patrick this morning. He essentially torpedoes the argument that players like Bonds and Clemens were HOF worthy before they started taking. He said that if you're worthy, you don't cheat. Pretty convincing argument IMO. He pointed out that these players made a choice because the union nixed testing all those years so they couldn't get caught. The players who made the choice to take steroids did so in the hopes of making more money. Clemens career earnings before coming to the Blue Jays, which is when most agree that if he used that is when he started, was $30 million. He earned $120 million after that. Bonds earned $7 million prior to coming to the Giants, and $180 million after.

A better question would be, should the media have any say in HOF voting. My answer would be a definitive NO!!!!

Nope, but it does turn fly outs into homeruns and simple groundouts into basehits.

**** Dan Patrick and **** the media.

Let's not start this again. If steroids doesn't help baseball players, they wouldn't take it and numbers would not have been at a historical high. There were more players that hit 50 home runs in the approximately 15 years of the steroid era than had in the 70 years since the dead ball era. Barry Bonds is one of only three players in history whose numbers went up after age 35. The other two were Tris Speaker, who was effected by the dead ball era, and Paul Molitor who was finally healthy after becoming a DH. Bonds numbers didn't just jump, they went through the roof.