Bonds begins HOF campaign

Long-ranging interview with Barry Bloom on MLB.com (Bloom was Bonds' personal reporter during the career home run chase).

http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120724&content_id=35483916&vkey=news_sf&c_id=sf

MLB.com: Do you feel you belong in the Hall?

Bonds: Oh, without a doubt. There's not a doubt in my mind.

MLB.com: How do you think the writers are going to handle you and the players of your era who are [linked] to performance-enhancing drugs?

Bonds: You have to vote on baseball the way baseball needs to be voted on. If you vote on your assumptions or what you believe or what you think might have been going on there, that's your problem. You're at fault. It has nothing to do with what your opinion is. Period. If that's the case, you better go way, way back and start thinking about your opinions. If that's how you feel life should be run, I would say then you run your Hall of Fame the way you want to run your Hall of Fame. That's what I think. That's my personal opinion. If you want to do the Hall of Fame the way the Hall of Fame is supposed to be done, then you make the right decision on that. If you don't, that's on you. To stamp something on your assumptions, it doesn't work for me.


And ...

"As far as handling the media, I would have done a lot of things differently. The character I created on the field was a different person than the way I was off the field. It was that person that made me perform. It gave me the push to perform."

 

Bonds doesn't get in until Pete Rose gets in. Rose doesn't get in until Joe Jackason gets in.

Clemens and Bonds will be inducted into the CVS Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, together.

 

Agreed. If you are going to let these people in, it diminishes the achievements of those already there.

 

Bonds should absolutely get in. He's the greatest player in baseball history.

 

Well, I certainly wouldn't call it a "campaign" because Barry doesn't give a rat's ass about whether writers vote him into the HOF. ("If [the voters] want to put me in there, so be it, fine. If they don't, so be it, fine.) But nonetheless he belongs in the HOF, as does Clemens, if the museum is going to be taken seriously. There's no question both were HOF-caliber players.

 

Even if you consider his steroid-addled accomplishments on full merit, Barry Bonds was not better than Babe Ruth.

 

You don't think Bonds cares about getting in the HOF? I would disagree vehemently with that. He doesn't just sit down for interviews like that because the guy runs into him. It is his own handpicked reporter.

 

I think he likes to say he doesn't care, but I'm sure he really does.

 

They have to fight to the death on the doorsteps of Cooperstown. The winner gets in. But not as a first-ballot HOF'er.

Bonds numbers w/o the 'roids are likely HOF worthy, but how do you know where his athleticism stopped and the supplements began?
Does he deserve to be in? Ok.
Does he deserve to enjoy the honor? HELL. No.
Put him in after he dies. Give him the honor but do not allow him to reap any more of the accolades, beyond the millions of dollars he's already made.

 

I think he'd like to get in and would accept the honor, but he was never going to kiss anyone's ass to get there. That hasn't changed. And I'm sure the interview was Barry Bloom's idea and it was probably more geared to Bonds' attempt to rejoin the Giants staff in some capacity than to "campaigning" for the HOF, which he views as an highly unlikely occurrence given his rapport with the voters.

 

I still say Bonds gets in, first ballot. The last five years have shown that there really isn't anyone who stands out as a paragon of virtue, completely beyond suspicion. And even discounting for the roids, he is a likely 500/500 guy with at least three MVP awards.

I also think writers are a lot better than they get credit for about putting negative personal feelings aside.