Should Barry Bonds be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame? [View all]

[Source: Wikipedia]

Considered to be one of the greatest baseball players of all time, Barry Bonds holds many major league hitting records, including most career home runs [762], most home runs in a season [73, set in 2001], and most career walks [2,558].
He also received eight Gold Gloves for his defense in the outfield.

In 2007, Bonds was indicted on four charges of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to the grand jury during the federal government's investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative [BALCO].

On February 14, 2008, a "typo" in court papers filed by federal prosecutors erroneously reported that Bonds tested positive for steroids in November, 2001, a month after hitting his record 73rd home run.
The reference was meant instead to refer to a November 2000 test that had already been disclosed and previously reported.
The typo sparked a media frenzy.

The perjury charges were eventually dropped.

On April 13, 2011, he was convicted on the obstruction of justice charge for giving an evasive answer to a question under oath.
The conviction was initially upheld by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2013, but a larger panel of the court voted 10-1 to overturn the conviction on April 22, 2015.

In 2018, Bonds was not elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his sixth of ten years of eligibility.


Despite extensive media coverage of Barry Bonds' role in the steroid scandal and BALCO, there is one important thing that the media has missed, which, in my opinion, is an important factor in determining whether or not he should be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Back in 2001, while he was setting the all-time record for most home runs in a single season, foreign terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11.
Everything stopped..including all air traffic (except for the jets that carried the Bin Laden family out of the country, much to the chagrin of the FBI)
Our nation was in shock, and, Republicans and Democrats alike, we all mourned the deaths of the nearly 3,000 innocent victims of the attacks, including 343 New York City firefighters and more than 60 NYC police officers.

Everything stopped - including major league baseball.
There were no baseball games for more than a week.
Then, after major league baseball resumed, Barry Bonds continued to hit home runs.

In my opinion, he did more to "heal" our nation in that time of great crisis than anyone else.
While most of us were still in mourning over the 9/11 attacks, Bonds resumed his quest to set the major league record for most home runs in a single season.
He eventually hit 73 homers that year, giving America something to cheer about for the first time since the 9/11 attacks.
I think he deserves some credit for that; and I also think he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame...but that's just my opinion.