Bonds, Clemens & Sosa Land on Hall of Fame Ballot

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa are officially listed on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for the first time. Baseball officially sucks.

Clemens, Sosa and Bonds are all major names in the “Steroid Era” of baseball. Their placement on the Hall of Fame ballot will shed some clarity on the HOF’s stance on steroids.

[poll id=”42″]There are two schools of thought when dealing with performance enhancing drugs in the MLB and the hall of fame. Many fans and journalists think that PEDs were a smudge on baseball and players who partook should be banned from having their name enshrined in the hall of fame. Others believe that although steroids were wrong, they were the norm during that era and players who did them should not be banned.

There are a total of 37 nominees on the hall of fame ballot. Other big names on this year’s ballot are Mike Piazza, Curt Schilling, Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell. To get into the hall of fame a candidate must receive a a 75% vote from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. The BBWAA is made up of over 700 journalists covering Major League Baseball. Of those 700, 600 “longtime members” are eligible to vote for HOF inductees.

Jayson Stark from ESPN thinks that if anyone gets into the hall of fame this year it will be either Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell or Craig Biggio, though he isn’t sure that anyone will get a plaque in Cooperstown this year.

Here is the full list of the 37 players on the ballot:
Sandy Alomar Jr.
Jeff Bagwell
Craig Biggio
Barry Bonds
Jeff Cirillo
Royce Clayton
Roger Clemens
Jeff Conine
Steve Finley
Julio Franco
Shawn Green
Roberto Hernandez
Ryan Klesko
Kenny Lofton
Edgar Martinez
Don Mattingly
Fred McGriff
Mark McGwire
Jose Mesa
Jack Morris
Dale Murphy
Rafael Palmeiro
Mike Piazza
Tim Raines
Reggie Sanders
Curt Schilling
Aaron Sele
Lee Smith
Sammy Sosa
Mike Stanton
Alan Trammell
Larry Walker
Todd Walker
David Wells
Rondell White
Bernie Williams
Woody Williams

Eitan Levine is a New York City based comic. Follow him on Twitter at @Eitanthegoalie .