Baseball's Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame (53 page)

  • The tremendous amount of bulk that Bonds gradually added to his frame over the course of his career, particularly during the off-season preceding the 1999 campaign (he reported to spring training that year with an additional 20 pounds of muscle on his frame). Also, the huge increase in the size of his head since his earliest days in the league.

  • The fact that his personal trainer was his boyhood friend Greg Anderson, who not only has a checkered past, but, who, in October of 2005, was sentenced to three months in prison for money laundering and steroids distribution.

  • The fact that it was Anderson who introduced Bonds to Victor Conte, a known steroid-supplier, at the end of the 2000 season. In 2001, Bonds reported to spring an additional 18 pounds heavier, solid as a rock—and a better hitter than he ever was before.

  • The fact that Bonds’ use of steroids is described, in detail, in
Game of Shadows
.

These facts are difficult to ignore and detract greatly from many of Bonds’ career accomplishments. For that reason, those members of the media who began referring to Bonds as “the greatest player in baseball history” at the conclusion of the 2001 campaign, and have continued to do so ever since, really need to be a bit more responsible with the statements they make to the public. Not only are they failing to consider all the facts, but they have obviously forgotten just how far Bonds rose in stature in just a few short years. Apparently none of them remember that they said nary a word when Bonds was not included on the All-Century Team that was announced just prior to the turn of the century. They didn’t say anything at the time because, while Bonds was an exceptional player prior to 2000, he simply wasn’t the Superman he later became.

Still, even totally disregarding everything Barry Bonds accomplished after 2000, he has to be considered a legitimate Hall of Famer. Prior to the start of the 2000 season, he already had 445 home runs, 1,299 runs batted in, 1,455 runs scored, 2,010 hits, and 460 stolen bases. He already won three Most Valuable Player Awards and finished in the top five in the voting another four times. He also was selected to eight All-Star teams and won eight Gold Glove Awards. Therefore, in spite of the arrogance, condescension, and lack of integrity Bonds displayed throughout his career, he deserves to be voted into Cooperstown when his name is eventually added to the list of eligible players.

As for how Bonds’ records should be viewed, that is up to the discretion of the individual. My own personal feeling is that, until someone else comes along to shatter the record, Hank Aaron will remain major league baseball’s All-Time Home Run Champion, just as Roger Maris continues to remain its single-season record holder.

Alex Rodriguez

The man who most people considered to be the player most likely to restore the integrity of baseball’s all-time home run record was Alex Rodriguez. The third baseman for the New York Yankees ended the 2008 campaign with 553 home runs and, at age 33, appears to have an excellent chance of surpassing Barry Bonds’ total of 762. More than just a great home-run hitter, A-Rod’s 1,606 runs batted in have also put him in position to seriously challenge Hank Aaron’s existing RBI record of 2,297, and his 1,605 runs scored have him on pace to eventually surpass Rickey Henderson’s career record of 2,295. With 2,404 hits, Rodriguez also seems likely to join the exclusive 3,000 hits club before he retires. Furthermore, Rodriguez’s brilliance has not been limited to the offensive end of the game throughout his major league career. Before moving over to play third base after joining the Yankees prior to the start of the 2004 season, A-Rod won two Gold Gloves as a shortstop.

Indeed, his unique blend of power, speed, and fielding ability has prompted many baseball experts to view Rodriguez as arguably the finest all-around player of his era, and as one of the greatest players in baseball history.

Rodriguez’s skills began to surface shortly after he joined the Seattle Mariners as an 18-year-old at the end of the 1994 season. He became the Mariners’ starting shortstop two years later and hit 36 home runs, drove in 123 runs, led the league with 141 runs scored and a .358 batting average, and finished second in the A.L. MVP voting in just his first full season in the big leagues. At the end of the campaign, Rodriguez was named
The Sporting
News
Player of the Year. After another solid season the following year, Rodriguez became a member of the elite 40-40 club in 1998, hitting 42 home runs and stealing 46 bases for the Mariners. He also knocked in 124 runs, scored another 123, collected 213 hits, and batted .310 for Seattle that year.

The 1998 season was just the first of six consecutive years in which Rodriguez surpassed the 40-homer mark, making him only the second player in the history of the game to achieve that feat (Babe Ruth was the other). In two of those seasons, Rodriguez surpassed 50 homers, hitting 52 long balls in 2001, and another 57 in 2002, both for Texas. After joining the Yankees in 2004, Rodriguez won his second Most Valuable Player Award the following season, hitting 48 home runs, driving in 130 runs, scoring 124 others, and batting .321. He captured his third MVP trophy at the conclusion of the 2007 campaign for leading the major leagues with 54 homers, 156 runs batted in, and 143 runs scored, while batting .314.

In all, Rodriguez has topped 40 homers in eight of his 13 full seasons in the major leagues, surpassing 30 on three other occasions. He has also driven in more than 100 runs 12 times, batted over .300 nine times, and scored more than 100 runs each season. In scoring more than 100 runs for the 13th consecutive season in 2008, Rodriguez became the first player to do so since Lou Gehrig. In addition to his batting title, Rodriguez has led the league in home runs five times, runs batted in twice, runs scored five times, hits once, and doubles once.

Needless to say, Rodriguez’s many achievements appeared to make him a future certain first-ballot Hall of Famer heading into the 2009 season, even if he were never to play another game. However, his situation became far more muddled in early February of that year after it was discovered that he was one of 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in a 2003 survey testing conducted by Major League Baseball. It later surfaced that Rodriguez was found guilty of using testosterone and an anabolic steroid known by the brand name Primobolan. Testosterone can be taken legally with an appropriate medical prescription, but Primobolan is not an approved prescription drug in the United States, nor was it in 2003. According to steroid experts, the latter substance improves strength and maintains lean muscle with minimal bulk development. It also is known to have relatively few side effects.

Thus, the “clean” image that Alex Rodriguez always attempted to present of himself to fans and the media alike suddenly became tarnished, and the hopes of baseball purists everywhere that the all-time home-run record would be legitimized once more were dashed. Rodriguez quickly tried to minimize, at least to some degree, the negative perception he knew most people would subsequently hold towards him by admitting during a television interview conducted two days after his name was leaked to the press that he used performance-enhancing drugs from 2001-03. A-Rod attempted to explain his actions by claiming that they were prompted by his desire to prove he was worthy of the exorbitant contract he signed with the Texas Rangers prior to the start of the 2001 season. He stated in his TV interview: “When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me and I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day.”

Rodriguez accepted full culpability for his actions, claiming he was “young, stupid, and naïve” at the time, and also stating that he didn’t use performance-enhancing drugs prior to 2001, and that he hasn’t used them since 2003.

If Rodriguez’s words are true, the feeling here is that he must still be deemed a worthy Hall of Fame candidate when his playing days are over. After all, he was a great player in his five full seasons in Seattle before he joined the Rangers, and he has subsequently been a great player in his five years in New York. Here is a breakdown of his perseason averages with all three teams:

Although Rodriguez averaged several more home runs per-season in Texas, his overall numbers in both Seattle and New York are quite comparable to the figures he compiled with the Rangers. And at least part of the home-run discrepancy could probably be attributed to the fact that the Ballpark at Arlington has always been a great park for home-run hitters. Furthermore, as Rodriguez has steadfastly maintained, he had arguably his two finest all-around seasons in Seattle (1996) and New York (2007).

Nevertheless, one must seriously doubt the sincerity of anything Rodriguez says. There are just too many inconsistencies in his words. In an interview conducted with CBS’s
60 Minutes
in December of 2007, Rodriguez answered “No” when he was asked if he had ever used steroids, human growth hormone, or any other performance-enhancing substance. He even said that he had never even considered using them.

Rodriguez later said during his 2009 admission to ESPN television, “…to be quite honest, I don’t know exactly what substance I was guilty of using.” Yet he directly contradicted those words just one week later during a press conference held at the New York Yankees spring training facility. In his address to the media, Rodriguez not only provided the name of the performance-enhancing drug he used, but also discussed the frequency with which he took it.

Thus, one must question the veracity of Rodriguez’s claims, including those that state he used performance-enhancing drugs only from 2001-2003. He stated that his actions those three years were prompted by his desire to succeed under the enormous amount of pressure he felt after signing his contract with the Rangers. But Rodriguez left Texas in 2004 to play in New York— the media capital of the world—for the most famous franchise in sports. Are we to believe that he felt less pressure after joining his new team? Furthermore, three major league players revealed to
Sports Illustrated
that Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the players’ union, tipped off Rodriguez in early September of 2004 that he would be drug-tested later that month. And, who is to say that, despite his claims to the contrary, Rodriguez has not been using the undetectable HGH ever since?

Alex Rodriguez has nine years remaining on his contract with the New York Yankees, and it will presumably be some 15 years before he becomes eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame. Perhaps during that time more information will surface that will enable us to better understand the degree to which Rodriguez used performance-enhancing drugs over the course of his career. Perhaps a test for HGH will be developed in the next year or two that will allow us to be completely certain that the numbers Rodriguez compiles each season are legitimate. And quite possibly the names of the other 103 players who tested positive will be revealed, altering our view of several of the other men included on this list of Future Hall of Famers. But, because of his involvement with steroids, Rodriguez can never be considered the
true
home-run champion, no matter how many homers he goes on to hit.

As for his status as a potential Hall-of-Famer, my first inclination is to say that Rodriguez probably should be inducted into Cooperstown when his playing days are over. However, it would probably be best to withhold judgment on that issue until we know more of the facts, and until Rodriguez actually does become eligible.