Originally Posted By: oldschool3
how can you justify Bonds in the HOF but not Sosa or McGwire?...you either juiced or you didn't....and by judging from the size of Bonds' melon alone...he was a big juice junkie smile


I see what you're saying, but as i said earlier it's not exactly clear who did and didn't juice. Without a doubt there are current and future members of the HOF who used steroids. Going back to my earlier example of Gaylord Perry, why is he a member of the HOF? He readily admitted cheating his entire career, going as far as naming his autobiography after it. It's also not as if it was a minor flaw in the rules he exploited or a recent addition, it directly improved his pitches just like PEDS's would someones batting,baserunning,pitching,etc, and the rule was introduced 40+ years before he debuted.

Again from everything i've read Bonds started juicing around 1998, if you have anything that contradicts this then i'd genuinely be interested in seeing it. Now going on the assumption that this is the case, using his full Pirates career and his first 5 with the Giants while factoring in a natural decline, Bonds was HOF already. He was consistently hitting 30+ HR's and stealing 30+ bases with a decent Batting Average and an excellent Slugging %. I honestly don't care if he makes the HOF (he wont) or not, but to say he isn't deserving is incredibly narrowminded imo. As PB said he's not a very nice person, but what he did in his career pre-juice is without a doubt HOF material.

Regarding Sosa and McGwire, i suppose an argument could be made for Sosa. In no way does McGwire deserve it though, the guy admitted he took PED'S for the majority of his career, meaning we pratically never saw him at his unaided capacity. Again Bonds proved himself without PED'S, while McGwire is pretty much the reason why this era is so seedy. Outside of power hitting McGwire did nothing at all, which i think shows how much he needed PED's, even with them he could only hit Homeruns.

Now i know that what i said above, is pretty contridictary but it's pretty much the way i see things.