Astros: Should Roger Clemens be in the Hall of Fame?

(Photo by Robert Leiter/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
(Photo by Robert Leiter/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

The BWAA decided not to elect Barry Bonds or former Astros pitcher Roger Clemens into the Hall of Fame.

Baseball fans as well as writers believe that Barry Bonds and former Houston Astros pitcher Roger Clemens took steroids at some point in their career.

However, neither player has ever, to our knowledge, tested positive for Performance Enhancing Drugs, nor has either admitted to doing so.

They played in the steroid era. So, let’s take a look at players from this era who have admitted to using steroids.

From Fox Sports, players such as Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and Andy Petite have admitted to using at least once.

Something important to note about Petite, is that he claimed that Clemens and himself both used Human Growth Hormones (HGH) while on the Astros in 2004. Clemens denies Petite’s claim, but it only adds to further speculation.

The argument can be made that Bonds should be a Hall of Famer based purely on his statistics while playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Most baseball fans to this day believe Bonds was not using steroids while playing for Pittsburgh.

What stands out to me about Bonds’ stats is that he never got above 50 home runs at any point in his career, and then hit 73 at age 37. Most people believe that a player’s prime ends somewhere in the early to mid-30s, but that it definitely has ended by age 37.

With that logic, it would make no sense for Bonds to amass those kinds of numbers at that age without some kind of help, but then again just look at what Lebron James has managed in the NBA.

Similarly, Clemens threw the lowest ERA of his career, 1.87, at the age 43. He had a great ERA throughout his career, but it seems suspicious that he threw his lowest at an age where most baseball players have long been retired.

Then again, Tom Brady did manage to win a Super Bowl in his 40s, so maybe its not that odd.

I whole-heartedly believe that a player’s selection to the Baseball Hall of Fame should be based purely on their performance on the diamond, and nothing else.

I also firmly believe that Shoeless Joe Jackson, Pete Rose, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds should all be inducted to the Hall of Fame.

Yes, they potentially all had off-the-field scandals or some form of cheating, but their stats say they should be in the Hall.

Major League Baseball did not strip the Commissioner’s Trophy from the 2017 Astros, which sets a precedent of looking only at baseball abilities and no outside factors.

I believe this is exactly how it should be, as most players who cheat, in my opinion, only do so to match what is going on in the rest of the league. This precedent should carry over into Hall of Fame Elections, as I expressed in a tweet this past week.

Schedule