Student

With career homerun number 756, Barry Bonds has rewritten baseball’s record book. The way in which he has done it has been a relatively polarizing debate. The speculation surrounding the toppling of the record has many asking whether he should be inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame (HOF). I feel that if there is no evidence of, or if they have not admitted to the use of steroids, baseball players suspected of steroid use should be inducted into the baseball hall of fame.

Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. are viewed as ambassadors of the game of baseball and are widely viewed as icons of the game. In contrast, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds are surrounded by suspicion of having used performance enhancing drugs. As Bodley (2007) describes it, “I always admired McGwire, from the day I first met him as a rookie through the exciting 1998 chase of Roger Maris' record of 61 home runs in a season. We all knew he took andro, but that over-the-counter supplement was legal then”. He falling out of favor with the public has been a direct result of that “disastrous day on March 17, 2005, when he refused to talk about his past during the nationally televised congressional hearing on steroids” (Bodley, 2007). McGwire has hurt his chances of being inducted into the baseball hall of fame as described by Bodley (2007), “Ripken and Gwynn have remained close to baseball. They go out of their way to give back. In that regard McGwire has been AWOL.”

The integrity of baseball has been put into question in recent years, with some of its biggest stars, such as Rafael Palmeiro (Steroid Shocker: Palmeiro Suspended, 2005), testing positive for steroids. Baseball has been in the spotlight for this reason because it hosts some of the most doped athletes. In the history of baseball, there have been many memorable names such as Hank Aaron, the all-time homerun leader, Ted Williams, last player to bat .400 in a full season, and Babe Ruth, affectionately know as the �Sultan of Swat’, and now Barry Bonds for all the allegations surrounding his name about steroids and cheating.

An important distinction to make is that neither Barry Bonds nor Mark McGwire have never tested positive for steroids and they have never admitted to using them. There is a published list of banned substances by WADA (The 2006 Prohibited List, 2005) that is openly published and should be used as a working