Alnorth: if it's any consolation, Rany agrees with your viewpoint.
http://www.baseballnation.com/2012/1...-fame-steroids
The difference I see here is, these modern players didn't use PEDs to overcome injury during the season. They paid chemists and boutique drug specialist to craft PEDs that would help them bulk up in the off season, and be UNDETECTABLE by the testing methods at the time. In other words, it was all done to help their agents demand more money for each roided up player, based on their drug-inflated statistics.
Look at Barry Bonds Rookie Card. Doing push ups didn't make his hat size grow from a 6 to a 7 and 3/4.
The other thing that is not spoken of is, these players didn't roid up to help their teams. They roided up to help their marketability first and foremost. It was about grabbing as much money as possible, and cheating the system to do it. Guys like ARoid did nothing but chase money their entire career, and in the case of ARoid, it didn't help the teams he played for win squat.
I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. And I'll have to see some quantitative proof that "fans want these guys in the hall."
I'll bet it's 50-50 tops.