Barry Bonds was not inducted into the Hall of Fame due to the steroids he used in his career. Although Barry Bonds did use steroids he should still be inducted into the Hall of Fame because everyone during that time period used it, he was still good enough to be a hall of famer before he started using them and people that used steroids already got inducted.

It would be one thing if he was the only person using them to get to that point but he wasn’t. He shouldn’t get stripped of the Hall of Fame because he used steroids in the steroid era.

Many people think that he wouldn’t be good without steroids but that’s not true because if you look at his stats before he started to use steroids, his numbers were still amazing. During his rookie year he led all rookies with 16 home runs, 48 RBI’s, 36 stolen bases and 65 walks. His statline only improved from his rookie season and he even became an Allstar in 1990. As you can see he wasn’t an average player before the steroids.

When Bonds was approaching his 30s instead of considering retirement he started to use steroids. I don’t think Bonds used steroids to be better but instead to make his career longer. You can tell that even if he didn’t use steroids he would have
been inducted into the Hall of Fame. I don’t think he was trying to cheat but more so keep playing so he could make more money and be set for life.

The main argument against Bonds is the fact that steroids are just straight up cheating, which is completely true. It is cheating and should not be allowed. The only problem with this argument is the fact that he wasn’t the only one. The sad part is that it got so bad that the time they played is now referred to as the steroid era.

For the majority of his career he didn’t use them and was going up against guys that were. He would go up against other pitchers and hitters throwing and hitting harder than ever. At a certain point it has to be considered a disadvantage for anyone that doesn’t use them because the players are doing things that aren’t normal. One thing that people forget is how hard it is to hit a baseball. You could be the strongest person ever and still not be able to hit the ball. The fact of the matter is that he still has to recognize the pitch coming and decide whether to swing or not.

Not only that since the pitchers were using steroids too they would throw much faster making it that much harder to hit. Overall, sure, steroids are cheating, but there are many other factors and problems you have to take into consideration.

One of the other important things to consider is the fact that Alex Rodriguez one of the most well known steroid users got inducted into the hall of fame. For some reason people didn’t see a problem with ARod getting inducted into the Hall of Fame because of the numbers he put up, even though Barry Bonds was able to put up just as good or if not better numbers than he did.

The main factor that separates the two is the fact that Barry Bonds had to go up against other pitchers on steroids as well because during that era everyone was on it so you could say it’s more fair that ARod was on steroids when no one else was. The MLB cant decide that it is OK for some people to still get inducted and then not induct some of the best players in the steroid era. They need to keep it consistent because no matter who you ask they will say that Barry Bonds was the best home run hitter of all time.

Do I think steroids are good? No, I don’t; it is cheating and I am glad they have come up with more testing to make sure players aren’t on them. But when there is a point in time called the steroid era when almost every player used them I don’t think it’s fair to not induct people from that time period into the Hall of Fame. You can’t blame players for taking advantage of something that the MLB wasn’t figuring out.

If anyone is to blame for this, it’s the MLB itself for not making better efforts to put an end to it at the time.  So, what I want the MLB to do is to reconsider and induct Barry Bonds into the Hall of Fame.