Hall of Fame case for Bonds and Clemens

NEW YORK — Well, here it is — another year gone by. But not just any year. It was the year we self-isolated and socially distanced. The year we missed all the trappings of life before COVID-19: seeing our friends, going to the movies and even engaging in the time-honored tradition of arguing with family members around the dinner table.

We learned to stay put, to mask up, and that a human actually can watch 18 straight hours of Netflix, as long as she tries hard and believes in herself.

With that in mind, it seems only right to say farewell to 2020 by reclaiming a luxury of years past — the luxury of arguing about something relatively inconsequential (relative, at least, to the life-and-death questions this year has wrought).

So gather around the metaphorical dinner table, friends, because I’m about to deeply annoy half of you: When the Baseball Writers’ Association of America announces the 2021 Hall of Fame inductees in mid-January, the list should include Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

Let’s first take the case for Bonds. He testified under oath that he first took steroids at some point in 1998 after his personal trainer allegedly told him it was arthritis cream and flaxseed oil, which means we can throw out anything he did after that ‘98 season, beginning at the age of 34.

So what about before that? In his first 13 seasons, Bonds already had put together a Hall of Fame career: He compiled a 99.2 WAR, was named MVP three times and was an eight-time All-Star. He hit 411 home runs, stole 445 bases and drove in 1,216 runs. He had a .966 OPS.

Bonds has the fourth-best WAR of all time, according to Baseball-Reference. If you use his pre-steroid numbers, his WAR still is among the best — 33rd in MLB history, right behind Hall of Famers Joe Morgan and Warren Spahn and ahead of Hall of Famers such as Carl Yastrzemski, Phil Niekro and Cal Ripken Jr.

This wasn’t a mediocre player transformed into a great one. This was a great player transformed into an otherworldly one. All he needed to do was remain consistent for the balance of his career, and Bonds had been consistent since rookie ball.

Sure, he was getting older, and he benefited from the way steroids accelerate healing, but there’s every reason to believe he would have continued to be an excellent player, even without the PEDs.

But so what, you might say. He cheated, and cheaters don’t belong in the Hall of Fame. And while this should be true, the conversation is a bit more nuanced.

Baseball’s steroid policy in the ’80s and ’90s was essentially don’t ask, don’t tell. Everyone and their grandmother knew Jose Canseco was taking steroids, and MLB did nothing to curb it at the time.

In 1991, Commissioner Fay Vincent announced via team memos that steroids were banned — this happened three years after Congress made it illegal to distribute or possess anabolic steroids, by the way — but showed no inclination to enforce it.

Clemens too never had a positive test. He, unlike Bonds, never admitted to taking steroids. And though the Mitchell Report said Clemens took PEDs, even the courts couldn’t prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. He was acquitted of all six counts of lying to Congress when he denied using steroids.

Bonds and Clemens have this year and the next to gather the votes they need. I say, let’s do what ought to be done and put them over the top.