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Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Trevor Bauer Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

Trevor Bauer backs Barry Bonds for Hall of Fame

By Zac Wassink | Last updated 6/15/20

One of the closing scenes of the ESPN 30 for 30 piece "Long Gone Summer" about the 1998 home run chase that starred Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa shows the St. Louis Cardinals welcoming McGwire into the club's Hall of Fame largely because he blasted 70 home runs during the '98 campaign.

San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds broke McGwire's record when he hit 73 homers in 2001, and one current player is campaigning for Bonds to have his day in Cooperstown.

Late Sunday night/early Monday morning, Cincinnati Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer, who has been outspoken about negotiations between the MLB Players Association and owners to start the 2020 season amid the coronavirus pandemic, tweeted that Bonds belongs in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

"The only caveat to that is if you broke a rule that was on the books at the time and specifically states the penalty is being banned from baseball," Bauer wrote, referencing Bonds' links to performance-enhancing substances.

McGwire has openly admitted using steroids during his career. Unlike Pete Rose, neither McGwire nor Bonds are banned from big-league baseball.

Bauer noted that, by today's standards, many players already in the Hall of Fame would be excluded in 2020:

Barry Bonds is a hall of famer
— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) June 15, 2020

History. The only caveat to that is if you broke a rule that was on the books at the time and specifically states the penalty is being banned from baseball. The black sox scandal, for example.
— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) June 15, 2020

Those same substances are illegal today, so by that logic, should every player that took them be disallowed from the hall of fame? It would be a hall of empty if that were the case. At some point, the best players of their era have to be enshrined. Period. Its part of our game’s
— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) June 15, 2020

what we would consider “steroids”, substances that are illegal today were legal back then. Greenies, amphetamines, etc., used to be handed out like candy. Players were forced to take them because it was seen as “not doing everything you could to help the team” if you didn’t.
— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) June 15, 2020

The hall of fame is a shrine to the history of the game. Regardless of your feelings on this, steroids are part of the game’s history. It would be very hard to convince me that no players in the hall of fame currently used performance enhancing drugs. And even if they didn’t use
— Trevor Bauer (@BauerOutage) June 15, 2020

Bonds retired with 762 career home runs, more than any player in history, but some nevertheless still consider Hank Aaron as baseball's home-run champion because Aaron was never accused of using any banned PEDs.

As noted by R.J. Anderson of CBS Sports, support for Bonds' enshrinement in the Baseball Hall has grown among voters. Votes for Bonds increased from 53.8 percent in 2017 to 60.7 percent earlier this year.

A player needs a minimum of 75 percent of a vote to get in.

Bonds is widely considered to be one of the greatest players ever despite what he did or didn't put into his body as a pro.

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