Hall of Fame Poll: Barry Bonds

Casey Blake is the next on the Hall of Fame Ballot but I don't really think many would consider him a Hall of Fame type.

Casey played 13 season. He started his career with the Blue Jays, then played for the Twins, Orioles, Twins again, Cleveland and finish with the Dodgers. He hit .264/.336/.442 with 167 home runs in 1265 games. He played third base, outfield and first.

So we come to Barry Bond. There isn't any doubt that Bond used PEDs.

This is Barry's fifth time on the ballot. Last year he was on 44.3% of the writer's ballots.

You all know the numbers, he won the MVP award 7 times (and likely should have won it more), made 14 All-Star teams and has 8 Gold Gloves. Baseball Reference has him number 2 in WAR, among position players in baseball history, at 158.1. He only trails Babe Ruth. He's the all-time leader in home runs (762), walks (2558) and intentional walks (688).

And he used steroids. And he was (is) a jerk. Not that we don't have a lot of jerks in the Hall of Fame. If there was a jerk quotient (some way of quantify jerkness), let's face it, Ty Cobb and several others would have 10 times the number Bonds' number.

I have a hard time with writers being holy than thou over steroids when they ignored the problem. And, let's face it, we all cheered when they were hitting home runs. I think Bonds would have Hall of Fame numbers even if he didn't use.