Barry Bonds Might Have Received Baseball Hall Of Fame Spot If Rules Weren’t Changed

Barry Bonds was once again rejected for entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame. This was the controversial slugger’s final year of eligibility. Bonds will no longer appear on the ballot in the future. That is only because of a rule change that occurred in 2014.

According to CBS Sports, under the original rules, players could stay on the ballot for up to 15 years as long as they received 5% of the Baseball Writers Association of America’s vote. In 2014, a decision was made to change the rule to only allow for a maximum of ten years. Several players who were already past ten years such as Don Mattingly, Allan Trammel, and Lee Smith, were allowed to be grandfathered in under the new protocol.

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were among many players who were subject to the rule. That mean that Bonds had ten shots after a five-year grace period after his retirement to enter the Hall of Fame. The San Francisco Giants star obviously will not be getting inducted.

Bonds was the poster boy for Major League Baseball’s steroid era. Bonds went from a speedy base stealer who was a spray hitter with a little bit of power to the all-time home run king. A skinny physique became superhero-like as Barry packed on muscle throughout his career.

The rule change drew a line to help keep out users of performance enhancing drugs in an effort to maintain the purity of the game. The Baseball Hall of Fame has already enshrined several players, teams, coaches, and executives from the past who were involved in major scandals, including cheating and drugs.

The rule change means that Barry Bonds will never get to appear on the ballot again. San Francisco Giants fans might be majorly disappointed. The rest of the baseball world seems totally fine with Bonds’ exclusion.

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