Does Bonds merit HOF consideration?

Sometimes friendly banter among Evening Sun reporters lends itself to a discussion we call “Point/Counterpoint.” In this forum, our staff battles wits and ideas on a variety of subjects, and today, Evening Sun Staff Writer, Michael McGuire, and Evening Sun Sports Editor, Patrick Newell, take sides in the Barry Bonds ordeal. Bonds recently avoided indictment, but his alleged steroids use perhaps casts a cloud on his voluminous statistical records.

PN: Here’s the deal Clubber Lang: There is no questioning Barry Bonds’ talent, nor is there any question he merits Hall of Fame induction five years after his retirement. No player has won more MVP awards in Major League history, and the majority of his accomplishments came years and years before there was any question of steroids use. And let’s be honest: Will a pill or supplement enable you to see a 90 mile-per-hour fastball? No. That takes skill, and Bonds has that in droves.

MM: Some the most talented and skilled people I have ever met are currently rolling dice and sleeping in bus stations for no other reason than skill and talent do not make you a good person, and they don’t insure you a great lot in life. I don’t really know anyone living in a bus station, but I do know people who have extraordinary abilities that are lousy people, and that is how they are classified. I consider Barry Bonds to be an extremely flawed and unsympathetic individual. I went to the Hall of Fame to experience the greatness of the unworldly talent and personalities that fill it. In Barry’s case, excellence can be ordinary when the soul behind is dark. He should be left out of the Hall.

PN: You are definitely correct about Bonds’ contentiousness and arrogance. Yeah, he is a jerk, but so, too, was Ty Cobb. Ted Williams essentially snubbed the press for years and years, but there was no questioning his election to the Hall. And everyone knows Pete Rose was no choir boy...wait, he’s not in Hall yet! Still, the Hall of Fame is statistics-driven, and Bonds merits election for that very fact. Unless it can be proven his career was tainted by steroids use, is there any doubt he’s a first-ballot choice?