It is that time of year again: The Baseball Hall of Fame’s hand-picked committee is set to perform its annual ritual of pearl-clutching, moralizing, and hair-splitting that is electing players to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
And, once again, Barry Bonds will be left on the outside looking in.
Bonds was denied admittance to the hall by the writers for a decade, and now the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee — whatever that is — will deny him admittance.
Bonds shares a ballot with Jeff Kent, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, and four others this time around. Their vote will be announced on Sunday.
And so we have another opportunity to rehash the debate we’ve had since 2013. “Is he the greatest? Is he a cheater? Do the cream and the clear negate the 762 home runs?”
But as we drift further away from the steroid era, a new, quieter reality has settled in. One that the gatekeepers of Cooperstown might not want to admit, but one that is painfully obvious to anyone paying attention:
It simply doesn’t matter anymore.
If Bonds never gets into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the sun will still rise, the fog will still roll into the Bay, and the Hall itself will continue to slide into irrelevance.
The angst over his exclusion is based on the false premise that the Hall of Fame still possesses the moral authority to judge him.
But that ship sailed a long time ago.
The Hall and baseball’s faux hierocracy that protects it want us peons to believe Cooperstown is a cathedral of integrity, protected by the infamous “character clause.”
But integrity requires consistency, and that’s nowhere to be found.
We have players enshrined who were widely suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs, but were admitted to the hall because they were charming to the media or smiled during interviews. We have the man who oversaw the entire era, turning a blind eye and enriching everyone, including himself, and who didn’t act until Congress got involved, Bud Selig, enshrined.
If the architect of the era is in, how can the defining player of the era be out?
Because logic need not apply to this space.
At this stage, keeping Bonds out of the Hall isn’t about protecting the sanctity of the game. It’s just selective moral grandstanding that’s masquerading as gatekeeping.
It is a way for voters to feel better about themselves, a performative flex of power over a player who never cared much for them in the first place.
That, it seems, was Bonds’ real sin.
The Hall of Fame is a museum that tells the story of baseball. Yet here we are telling a story about how it is failing to do that.
You cannot tell the story of baseball without the all-time home run leader who, it should be noted, holds no official ban and was never suspended by Selig.
By excluding him, the Hall doesn’t erase Bonds; it only highlights its own inability to fulfill its mandate.
But you know what, that’s OK.
Because at this point, Bonds not being a Hall of Famer should be a point of pride for the Giants and their fans.
I want everyone to embrace it.
With Buster Posey at the helm of baseball operations and Tony Vitello calling the shots from the dugout, the Giants have an opportunity to rebrand from a big-market afterthought franchise to one that — like Bonds — lives in the minds of all baseball fans rent-free.
The Giants should embrace being the villains of baseball, and that’s a hell of a lot easier to do if Bonds remains the game’s ultimate pariah.
Of course, Bonds doesn’t play anymore, but he is still the first player baseball fans think of when you say “San Francisco.” And since the Bay is the only place he’s embraced, he’s still around the team frequently,
A segment of the Giants fanbase wants the team to remain the lovable underdogs — to return to the 2010s.
How’s that worked over the last decade?
There is a more compelling path: the Bad Boys.
I want the Giants to return to 2002, albeit with more success this time.
Validation is for the insecure. And being hated is far better than being ignored.
So become the team that nobody likes, and who doesn’t care that you don’t like them. The team that, instead of trying to make waves in the winter in desperate bits for your third-party attention, goes and ruins your spring, summer, and fall by breaking every unwritten rule and smiling the whole time.
Purity? Sounds like loser talk.
I’m not advocating the Giants start a team-wide HGH cycle — that’s now strictly against the rules, unlike in Bonds’ time.
But other lines can be blurred; other norms can be challenged.
In short, I want the Giants to do everything that Madison Bumgarner would have disapproved of.
I want the Giants to play the game the wrong way.
And if the Giants and their fans are to become the most disliked team and fanbase in baseball, they should wear Bonds’ exclusion like a badge of honor.
There is a unique cachet to being the outlaw. The Raiders built a global brand on it. The Giants have the opportunity to do the same by continuing to rally around the man that the rest of baseball’s polite society refuses to acknowledge.
And they can do that while winning games, unlike the Raiders for the last 25 years.
So let the Hall keep its gate shut. Let them engage in their annual exercises of hypocrisy. It doesn’t change the stats. It doesn’t change the fear Bonds instilled in opposing dugouts. And it certainly doesn’t hurt his standing in San Francisco.
In fact, keeping Barry Bonds out of the Hall of Fame might be the only thing keeping him dangerous. And for a franchise pivoting to be villains, having that kind of danger in your corner is precisely what you want.