Barry Bonds Gets Rejected by the Hall of Fame - Why This is Bad For Baseball & Collectors

So my main man, Mr. Barry Bonds did not get into the Hall of Fame. I was really hoping that this might be the year that he gets in there. I love Barry. Before we get into this topic today, just be fully up front with you. I am completely biased about Barry Bonds. I've loved watching him play. He went to the same high school as I did. So keep that in mind when I'm going through today's topic.

Definitely was wishing he was going to get into the Hall of Fame. It was his last year of eligibility, and he only got 66% of the necessary 75% to get into the Hall of Fame. Curt Schilling got more votes than him at 71%. Curt Schilling, who pretty much all we remember Curt Schilling for is pretty much that bloody sock. I mean, granted, he did win a World Series. He won a couple of others, I think. So no knock on Curt Schilling, but come on. Curt Schilling isn't Barry Bonds.

Let's run through some quick numbers on Barry here. 14 time all star, 7 time NL MVP, eight time gold glove winner. He's the all-time home run leader at 762. Yes, I said that right. They haven't changed anything yet. They haven't removed it far as I know. So he's currently the all-time home run leader and it's like having the all-time NBA points leader and not in the in the NBA Hall of Fame. He's the only player with 500 home runs and 500 steals. Granted, Bonds did not win a World Series. He did get to one though, but did not win it. So that's definitely a drag on his resume a little bit there.

Get this, in Bond's first 13 seasons from 1986 to 1998. So this is kind of before he allegedly began to do drugs and whatnot. He averaged .290, 32 home runs he averaged a year and 93 RBIs. That was his average. That means he basically had about 416 home runs before he kind of started all this doping stuff. So the guy was on track for a Hall of Fame career. Now here's where it gets fishy. Beginning at the age of 34 Bond basically had like his six best years. He averaged .328 and he averaged 49 home runs a year and 105 RBIs. That was so cool to watch that you just never knew when he was going to hit a home run.

At the age of 40, he technically probably had his best season. He hit .362, on base percentage of .609, slugging percentage of .812, and he had 45 home runs and 673 at bats, and he only struck out 41 times and won his fourth consecutive MVP award and his seventh overall. So I mean the dude's the stat maker, right?

So the baseball "writers" did not vote him in. I use writers in quotations here. So the baseball writers will give him the NL MVP award seven times, but they won't put him in the Hall of Fame. That's kind of interesting. So who are these writers? Well, they call them electors, according to the baseball Hall of Fame rules. Only active and honorary members of the Baseball Writers Association of America who have been active baseball writers for at least 10 years shall be eligible to vote. I mean, what does that mean? Like you're getting a paycheck from a newspaper or what? They must've been an active baseball writer and member of the association for at least 10 years prior to the date of election, which they are voting. I'm assuming they got to probably pay to be in this association too. So this is kind of like a good old boys network. We're all familiar with those. They basically exist in corporate America and all over the place here, politics.

So notice it doesn't say anything about that they played the game at any particular time. Maybe not even played in high school, college professional. So none of these guys that are voting on this thing have ever played the game at any type of professional level it looks like. So it's rather interesting. It's kind of like politicians who work on a financial committee, but they don't have any experience in the financial sector. I mean, we see this all the time. Like you never ran a business before, why are you telling me how to run my business Mr. Politician? You don't know anything about my business?

So I don't know. These writers are just a joke. So anyways before we get into some other stuff here on Bonds, the voting, for the baseball Hall of Fame is based upon a players record, their ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team on which the player play. So three out of the six are basically your performance. Then the other three are based on your character, morality and all that kind of stuff. I'm not gonna deny that people did not like Barry. I get it. Totally get it. The guy has a different personality than other people. That's the way it is. The guy probably didn't like you baseball writers anyway. But, if we're going to vote half of the player's ability to get in the Hall of Fame on their character and morality, we better start looking at some of these guys that are in the baseball Hall of Fame.

Some of these guys are not as white as snow as we may believe. So I get it. People didn't really like him all that much, but if we're going to be voting on this thing and about steroids and all this kind of stuff. You better be looking at how this guy actually played as opposed to whether or not you liked him. Looking at those stats I just went over, there's no doubt this guy was one of the best players of all time. No doubt about it. If you ask any player that played in the late eighties, early nineties, "Hey, who was the best baseball player you ever saw play?" I guarantee you, 90% of them are going to say Barry Bonds.

The ball just sounded different coming off this guy. He could play defense. He could run, hit home runs, hit for average, he could do it all. Did Barry Bonds use performance enhancing drugs? I'm going to say probably yes. I think it's pretty clear that he probably did, but we have no way of knowing how much it helped him or hurt him. Drugs do have positive benefits, as far as steroids go, but they do have a negative consequences on your tendons and ligaments. We have no way of knowing. We have no way of knowing how this helped him. What if it was just 1%? Would that change your opinion of it?

Maybe. What if he gained a 30% edge? That would definitely change there. He was never suspended for a positive drug test, and that doesn't really mean much, right? Drug test are essentially an intelligence test, ask any Russian weightlifter how to pass a drug test. It's no problem. They know how to do it. There's easy ways to do it, whether legitimately or illegitimately. So, yeah, let's just assume the guy did drugs. So what? McGwire, Sosa, all those guys did drugs and those guys basically saved baseball. I know all of you remember that 1998 season with McGwire and Sosa going back and forth at that home run record. It was absolutely incredible.

MLB made billions off of those guys, they have made a chunk of change, that is incredible. Now, are they going to return that money because those years were quote unquote tarnished? No, of course not. They're going to keep all that profit. So MLB basically profited off of all these guys, and then they just kick into the curb because they've got some sort of morality in how they vote for these things. So it's just really disappointing. Bonds isn't in it, Roger Clemens isn't in it, and probably the biggest blunder by the baseball Hall of Fame yet, of course, is Pete Rose. I mean, who gives a crap the guy bet on games. I'm sure he wasn't the only one, what's more interesting to know is what was his percentage bedding like?

Was he a very good better, very bad better? I think that's kind of the more interesting story of the whole thing, but I don't know. You know, no matter how many athletes say it doesn't matter, recognition by getting the Hall of Fame is definitely important. We all saw David Ortiz's reaction when he got the phone call. It's really cool to see these players reactions when they do that. But kind of interesting, funny stat on David Ortiz and Barry Bonds. Ortiz's career on base percentage was .380. Bonds, if you took all of his 762 home runs and turn them into outs, his on-base percentage would have been .384, so slightly higher than David Ortiz. That just shows you how good Barry Bonds was, but it's just a sad day for baseball.

Kids aren't going to be able to go to the Hall of Fame and see Barry Bond's full career and story at the Hall of Fame. You'd see the good, and you'd see the bad with it. I mean, there's no point in hiding it. We can tell the story as we believe it to be true.

And I feel really terrible for the autograph collectors who loved watching Barry Bonds play, and now they don't get a chance to have Hall of Fame related items. I mean, that's what everybody wants to get. They want to get Hall of Fame related stuff. Bonds doesn't sign much anyway, but if he would have got into the Hall of Fame, he would of almost certainly would do an autograph signing, there are a lot of collectors out there who need him to complete 500 home run club related items. So that's disappointing. I'm hoping he does an autograph signing at some point. I definitely feel for collectors who kind of had their eye on maybe an upcoming Bond signing.

We saw this happen with Derek Jeter. Wasn't signing very much for four or five years and all of a sudden gets in the Hall of Fame and now he's doing four or five signings, six signings a year now. It's definitely better for collectors when these guys are signing. So definitely feel for all you. I definitely feel for the fans of the game, especially ones that really love going out to Cooperstown there, and especially the kids too. I mean, it's good for them to be able to learn the positives and the negatives of the sport and of each athlete as well. Bonds has definitely got a very cool story to him.

He's tied in with Willie Mays and all these guys. So it's going to be sad to see him not in the Hall of Fame, but maybe something will happen in the future. I don't know, but baseball's just falling behind. Baseball's got to get their act together. I know they're doing real well in revenue right now. It just seems like the game is just so slow and social media wise, it just seems like the NBA is like way ahead.

I don't know, it just seems like baseball's kind of falling behind a little bit. It needs to be kind of improved a little bit, definitely sped up. Just sad day for baseball though.