Bonds and Clemens should get 100% of the first-ballot vote from any objective observers. Both had Hall-of-Fame career numbers before steroid use ever became part of the game. But sportswriters are legendary for their desire to serve as moral police...look how Keith Olbermann turned out. :)
Other people cheated, so Bonds & Clemons get passes? OJ Simpson got away with murdering two people, so that means it should be 100% OK if I murder people too? Is that what you think?
Does objective mean any observer who agrees with you? I wouldn't vote for either Bonds or Clemens. Integrity is part of the process for admission into the hall of fame, and both of them took steroids and cheated. They wouldn't get my vote.
steroids were a fact of the game a decade ago
Yes, but not everyone took steroids. The players that took steroids cheated the other players. That's not fair, and it's not an excuse to say that a bunch of players were doing it. Doesn't matter.
Both had Hall-of-Fame career numbers before steroid use ever became part of the game.
I'm not so sure about that. There's never been a hint that Fred McGriff was on steroids, and he's not a HOFer (didn't even get close this year). So he's a pretty good baseline comparison. Let's assume that Bonds started taking steroids in 2000, the year in which his homers increased by 15 to a then career high 49 (the next year, he hit 73). So we're comparing McGriff to Bonds's career, 1986 through 2000.
Home Runs:
McGriff - 493
Bonds - 445
Batting Avg.
McGriff - .284 (including some crappy years at the end)
Bonds - .289
Slugging
McGriff - .509
Bonds - .567
RBIs
McGriff - 1550
Bonds - 1405
Doubles
McGriff - 441
Bonds - 451
Total Bases
McGriff - 4458
Bonds - 4228
Pretty similar. And McGriff got 20% of the vote this year. Where Bonds tends to dominate McGriff is on walks. But even in looking at singular dominant seasons, the two are pretty similar:
Prior to 2000, Bonds lead the league in home runs once (1993). McGriff did it twice (89, 92). Neither Bonds (pre-2000) or McGriff won the batting title. Bonds led the league in total bases once (1993), McGriff never got higher than third.
It's hard to say that pre-roid Bonds is a lock HOFer, especially given that McGriff is basically not even in the conversation. I will say that I think McGriff should be in the HOF, but McGriff is exactly the type of player that the steroid era has cheated. 493 home runs should have been a lock before steroids, but 500 home runs is considered a pretty pedestrian number these days, thanks to cheaters like Bonds, ARod, and Sammy Sosa.