Perrotto: Pirates’ First Hall of Fame Class Has One Glaring Omission (+)
It is hard to quibble with the list of 19 men who will comprise the first class of inductees for the Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Fame.
Including the 12 players who were inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame as Pirates was a no-brainer.
Dave Parker, Danny Murtaugh, and Steve Blass are all certainly deserving to be honored on Sept. 3 when the Pirates host the Toronto Blue Jays at PNC Park.
Honoring four Negro Leaguers who played for the Pittsburgh Crawfords and/or Homestead Grays is a classy touch.
However, there is one name missing from the impressive list. And it is a glaring omission.
Barry Bonds should be among the first class of inductees. Whether you love him, hate him, or fall into the very rare category of not having an opinion, Bonds’ credentials make him more than worthy of taking his place in Pirates’ history.
For starters, Bonds is the only Pirate to win multiple National League Most Valuable Player awards. He won in 1990 and again in 1992 in helping lead the Pirates to three straight NL East titles.
It should have been three MVPs in a row for Bonds. He was the best player in the league in 1991, too.
However, the Baseball Writers Association of America panel of voters gave the award to Atlanta Braves third baseman Terry Pendleton primarily because he was more likable than the prickly Bonds. As a 35-year member of the BBWAA, I can say it was not one of our best moments.
Bonds made his major league debut in 1986. Less than a year earlier, it looked like the Pirates would leave town.
That is not hyperbole, either. The Galbreath family was serious about selling to out-of-town buyers until Pittsburgh mayor Richard Caligiuri put together a public/private consortium that purchased the team.
Five years later, the Pirates were in the postseason and owned the city. No player was more responsible than the multi-talented Bonds.
Of course, the biggest knock on Bonds is he was implicated as a steroids user toward the latter stages of his career while playing for the San Francisco Giants. Though he never failed a drug test, there was certainly a lot of anecdotal evidence that Bonds cheated.
There is also a question of whether a player who spent just seven seasons with the club should be in the Pirates Hall of Fame. However, Bonds did more in those seven years than almost any player who has ever put on the uniform in the franchise’s 141-year history.
The steroids thing turns a lot of people off, and that’s understandable. However, it doesn’t mean what Bonds did in his career didn’t happen. He is clearly one of the five greatest players in baseball history, and to suggest otherwise is a fool’s errand.
Bonds identifies more with the San Francisco Giants after playing his last 15 seasons in his hometown. Yet it’s instructive to note the Pirates at least tacitly welcomed Bonds back into their family when they invited him to present the 2013 NL MVP award to Andrew McCutchen at the home opener in 2014.
Bonds is clearly one of the most important figures in franchise history. To exclude him from the first Hall of Fame class is a glaring omission.