Let the Hall Tell the Truth: Why Pre-Policy Steroid-Era Stars Belong in Cooperstown

Cooperstown is quiet in the winter. The ballot never is.

Baseball wants it both ways.

It wants the highlights—towering home runs, packed stadiums, record chases, the electricity of the late ’90s and early 2000s—without carrying the weight of what that era really was. It wants the nostalgia without the mess.

And nowhere is that more obvious than the Hall of Fame ballot.

The Hall is a museum. Museums don’t exist to make us comfortable. They exist to preserve what happened and explain how we got here. But with the steroid era, baseball keeps trying to solve history by editing names out of it.

I’m not here to defend steroids. I’m here to defend a fair standard: judge players by the rules and enforcement of their time. If MLB didn’t have a real, enforceable PED system yet, don’t pretend it did when you vote. Put the pre-policy stars in with honest context. Draw a tougher line for the guys who broke clear rules after the crackdown.

Because the steroid era wasn’t the result of a single choice made by a few bad actors. It was a culture—built on incentives, silence, and delayed enforcement—and it deserves to be handled consistently, not through selective punishment.

Judge the era by the rules and enforcement of its time.

The Hall of Fame shouldn’t be where baseball edits itself.

It should be where baseball tells the truth.

The Hall of Fame is a museum, not a morality trophy

Cooperstown isn’t supposed to be a “perfect people only” club. It’s supposed to be the place where baseball’s story is preserved—the good, the bad, and the complicated.

And baseball has always been complicated.

Different eras had different edges. Different standards. Different loopholes. Different things the sport tolerated as long as the product moved.

So why do we act like the steroid era is the one chapter where we suddenly have to pretend the players were either saints or villains?

MLB didn’t just “miss” the steroid era—it benefited from it

Let’s keep it real: the sport didn’t stumble into the steroid era by accident. MLB benefited from it.

Interest surged. Attendance climbed. Home run chases became national events. The league didn’t run from the spotlight—it lived in it.

And for a long stretch of that time, MLB didn’t have the enforced, consistent system that clearly told players, “Do this, and you’re out,” with the same certainty we associate with later years.

That matters because accountability is built on a simple foundation: what were the rules at the time, and how consistently were they enforced?

If the league hadn’t truly put teeth into policy yet, then we’re not judging “rule breakers” in the same way. We’re judging participants in an era the league helped create, profit from, and only later decided it needed to clean up.

My standard: pre-policy vs. post-policy

This is the line that makes sense to me, and it’s the only one that feels honest without rewriting history.

Pre-policy era: put them in, with context

These are the players whose careers were shaped during the period when MLB either didn’t have meaningful testing, didn’t have meaningful penalties, or didn’t enforce the issue with anything close to the seriousness it later demanded.

That includes names like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, Juan González, and other stars tied to that time through investigations, admissions, testimony, or credible reporting.

Do I believe every one of them played “clean”? No. Do I think the era itself was clean? Absolutely not.

But I also believe the Hall is supposed to tell baseball’s full story, and those players are central characters in that story—like it or not.

Put them in with context. Use the plaque to reflect the era. Use the museum to educate. Put the entire steroid-era conversation where it belongs: in the history of the game, not hidden under the rug.

Post-policy era: hold the line

Now here’s where I’m consistent, even when it’s uncomfortable.

I’d be lying if I said I don’t respect the talent of Alex Rodriguez. On pure ability, it’s hard to argue he wasn’t a Hall of Fame player.

But he doesn’t fall into the same bucket—and this is where the timeline matters.

Once the sport has clear rules, real testing, and real penalties, the “gray area” excuse fades. At that point, you’re not navigating a culture the league failed to police. You’re choosing to break an established system that everyone else is expected to follow.

That’s why it’s a different standard.

It doesn’t mean you erase what he accomplished. It means the Hall conversation shifts from retroactive judgment to accountability—because the consequences were known, and the rules were in writing.

Some names from the steroid era cross into that category, too. Once violations happen after the crackdown, the Hall argument changes.

The biggest hypocrisy in this debate

We act like keeping steroid-era stars out protects baseball.

But baseball isn’t protected by selective memory.

The current approach creates the worst outcome: we keep the era’s most prominent names out while still celebrating the era’s numbers, still replaying the era’s highlights, still selling the era’s nostalgia.

That’s not integrity. That’s convenience.

If we’re going to judge, let’s judge honestly. The league’s leadership decisions mattered. The culture mattered. The incentives mattered. The enforcement mattered.

And voters need to stop acting like players were operating under today’s standards with today’s consequences.

What “put them in” actually means (and what it doesn’t)

Putting steroid-era stars in the Hall is not the same as saying steroids were fine, everyone should do it, or it didn’t matter.

It means they happened. They shaped baseball. They are part of the story. The story belongs in Cooperstown, not in denial.

We don’t rewrite baseball history because it makes us uncomfortable. We document it, learn from it, and move forward.

My solution: induction plus honest context

Here’s the middle ground that actually works:

Induct the pre-policy stars who meet the baseball standard. Use the plaque to acknowledge the era without turning it into a courtroom verdict. Let the museum do what it’s built to do—show the timeline, explain how enforcement changed, and tell the full story.

Hold post-policy violators to a different bar, because the rules were clear and the consequences were known.

That approach doesn’t sanitize baseball. It respects it.

The Hall of Fame shouldn’t be where baseball edits itself.

It should be where baseball tells the truth.