Sorry, Hall of Fame Voting Just Doesn't Compute

Let me try and understand.

Barry Bonds is baseball’s all-time home run king — with 762 home runs — and all-time leader in walks — with 2,558 walks.

But he was shut out of induction into the Hall of Fame in his 10th and final year on the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) ballot this week.

Roger Clemens earned a major-league record seven Cy Young Awards for pitching greatness in his career. Randy Johnson ranks No. 2 with four Cy Young Awards, and Steve Carlton and Greg Maddux won three apiece.

But he was shut out of induction in the Hall of Fame in his 10th and final year on the BBWAA ballot this week.

Clemens was named on 66.2 percent of the ballots cast, 8.6 percent shy of induction. Bonds was included on 66 percent of the ballots, nine percent short.

The knock on both — suspicion of steroid usage. No proof, but suspicions.

Meanwhile, in his first year of eligibility, while Bonds and Clemens had the door slammed in their faces, David Ortiz was becoming the first DH elected in his first year of eligibility despite similar suspicions of his straying from the rules of the game.

Go figure.

Cooperstown has an impressive list of players who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.

But there are glaring omissions extending beyond Clemens and Bonds.

Throw in Pete Rose, banned from baseball by the late commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti for betting on the Reds to win when he was manager of the Cincinnati franchise.

Ortiz, who, like Bonds and Clemens, had a sudden statistical explosion in his production when he was dealt from Minnesota, where he hit 58 home runs in 455 games over six years, to Boston, where he hit 483 home runs in 1,953 games, an average of one every 14.8 at-bats.

Maybe it was a third-time-charm event for Ortiz, who never got out of the low-A level in three years with Seattle, which dealt him to the Twins.

But then Commissioner Rob Manfred was quickly backtracking recently on a 2003 drug testing program that the New York Times reported in a 2009 story that listed Ortiz was among 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing substances during a round of tests conducted in 2003. Manfred did not issue a denial but he did say it may have not been as serious as reported.

All of this just adds to the mess MLB has become in recent years.

It is a sport in which its all-time hit leader (Pete Rose), all-time home run and walk leader (Barry Bonds), and all-time leader in Cy Young Awards (Roger Clemens) are not included in a Hall of Fame that was created to honor greatness in the game.

So, basically, what baseball is saying is that as long as Clemens and Rose and Bonds were putting cheeks in the seats, they could be a part of baseball. But now that they no longer wear a uniform they are don’t-invite-ems.

What baseball is saying is as long as teams were reaping the financial rewards of expanded attendance when the likes of Clemens or Rose or Bonds were coming to town, they were welcomed. But not anymore, not in retirement,.

The irony is the Hall of Fame is filled with batters who corked bats, or pitchers who doctored baseballs.

Now, it’s not the Hall of Fame’s fault. The Hall of Fame is the victim of the vote.

The Hall of Fame is now faced with extolling the greatness of the game, without being allowed to include the two on-field greats, Clemens and Bonds, among the inductees. They have joined Rose in the Thanks, But No Thanks Club.

What is so quickly overlooked is over the decades, baseball has always had its little secrets, like pitchers using sandpaper to scuff up baseballs, putting a dab of pine tar on the back of their glove hand so they can spread some of the stuff on a baseball and make it dance, or batters covering their bats with superball rubber for a more explosive reaction of the baseball off the bat, or runners on second base stealing a catcher’s signs.

As Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry, a master of the spitball, proclaimed in his biography, “It ain’t cheating if you don’t get caught.”

Or in the case of Bonds and Clemens, “It ain’t cheating until your career is over.”

It’s another black mark on the game, which is fading into the sporting background on a national basis.