Saying ‘Hall No!’ to Bonds, Roger

The day belonged to the new Hall of Famers, Greg Maddux, Tom Glav i ne, a nd Fra n k Thomas, and their greatness deserves to be celebrated. Yet there’s no denying the most intriguing development of the new vote was the news that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens moved further away from Cooperstown in their second year of eligibility.

And I believe that’s the way it should be.

Don’t tell me you can’t write the history of baseball, as some like to say, without voting Bonds and Clemens into the Hall of Fame. Pete Rose was never even put on the ballot, as decreed by Major League Baseball, and yet his accomplishment as baseball’s all-time hit leader is showcased in the museum that is the actual Hall.

He just isn’t honored with an official plaque. And so it should be with the game’s all-time home run leader and its only seven-time Cy Young winner.

By withholding a vote for Bonds and Clemens, I’m not pretending they didn’t exist or that they weren’t among the best of the best. I just believe that induction into the Hall of Fame is the highest honor a player can receive, and as such I’m not willing to bestow that honor on players who so blatantly and knowingly cheated the game and distorted the record books by using steroids.

For now at least, that seems to be the prevailing v iew among the voters, and there is no sign it will change anytime soon. The surprise was that Bonds, with 34.7% of the vote, and Clemens with 35.4%, each received even less support this year than last, and so the idea they’ll ever get the necessary 75% of the vote for election is starting to seem like a longshot.

We’ll see. They have 13 more years on the ballot, and attitudes among voters regarding performance-enhancing drugs could change significantly by then.

As it is, I changed my stance a bit this year and voted for Mike Piazza, as I did with Jeff Bagwell last year, despite all the PED speculation surrounding them.

Suspicions or no suspicions, there was so much PED use during their era that unless I feel 100% certain about a player, I don’t feel right about withholding a vote from a deserving player.

And Piazza’s vote total did move up slightly, from 58% last year to 62.2% this year, and that was significant in a year when so many other players’ vote percentage went down, perhaps because the ballot was so crowded.

I know some have made the argument that if the government couldn’t nail Bonds and Clemens, it’s unfair to make them pay i n the voting. But common sense tells you the evidence is overwhelming against them, and sentencing them to life outside of Cooperstown isn’t exactly like sending them to jail.

So let them stand as a symbol of the steroids era, along with any others who have failed drug tests or admitted to PED use.

The Hall of Fame will survive just fine without them. There were plenty of other deserving candidates this year, and more coming next year when Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson and John Smoltz go on the ballot for the first time.

As it is, the presence this year of Maddux, Glavine and Thomas, as well as fellow first-timers Jeff Kent and Mike Mussina, seemed to have a dramatic impact on the overall vote.

If you want to talk about injustices, well, I’m not sure how 16 voters left Maddux off their ballot; if it was to preserve the unfortunate history that no player has ever been voted in unanimously, well, that’s just silly. Why must we preserve the mistakes of the past?

Then there’s Jack Morris, whose percentage dropped in his final year. I’ll never understand why so many numerologists allowed his 3.90 ERA to prevent them from voting for Morris’ dominance, his willingness to work deeper into games in the name of protecting leads − rather than his ERA − than any pitcher of his era.

At least now he’s off the ballot, and the sabermetricians can stop screaming until Morris is voted in at some point by the Veterans Committee

In addition, the crowded ballot took a toll on some other deserving candidates. It was rather shocking to see Curt Schilling’s percentage drop to 29.2%, and I can’t understand how Edgar Martinez, who oozed greatness as a hitter, and Alan Trammell, a brilliant and productive shortstop, are both down around 25%.

Of course, the high standard for election is what separates baseball’s Hall of Fame from other sports and makes it fodder for such passionate debate.

It’s what makes a day like Wednesday par ticularly memorable, as the greatness and class of Maddux, Glavine, and Thomas were rewarded, while the stain and shame that Bonds and Clemens brought upon themselves were stamped as likely permanent.