Former MLB slugger Frank Thomas, a Hall of Famer himself, isn’t excited about welcoming in players who are suspected of having used PEDs during their careers.
A longtime critic of performance enhancing drugs in the sport of baseball, The Big Hurt made his feelings about the Hall of Fame accepting such players known during the Chicago White Sox’s fan convention this weekend.
“Not happy at all,” he said to a round of applause from fans (h/t Associated Press). “Some of these guys were great players. But they wouldn’t have been great players without drugs. … I don’t mind these guys doing what they want to do for their families and make their money. But don’t come calling to the Hall of Fame and say ‘I’m supposed to be in the Hall of Fame’ when you know you cheated.”
Interestingly, as strongly as Thomas feels about this issue, he believes players like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds should already be in the Hall of Fame.
“They should be in now, as far as I’m concerned,” Thomas said. “They’ve let a few people in already we all know. It’s uncomfortable at this point. I’m sure this year’s going to be uncomfortable because we’ve got two great players going in, but they know. It’s no secret. If they didn’t do it, they would be stomping and kicking and in interviews saying, ‘I didn’t do it.’”
It’s a complex dynamic, since MLB was absolutely driven by PEDs for a long period of time before cracking down on the epidemic. Even players who haven’t been proved offenders like Jeff Bagwell and Ivan Rodriguez are suspected of using, and there are certainly many others who did use PEDs to gain an advantage and made it in.
The issue has definitely become a major point of contention and discussion for players who did get into the HOF without the use of performance enhancing drugs.
“Trust me, there’s a lot of internal talk going on,” Thomas said. “A lot of guys that I respect that are real, true Hall of Famers, all they have is their legacy. They didn’t make this kind of money. … They’re not happy about this at all.”
This is why we’ve written in the past that the Hall of Fame needs to have a wing dedicated to this period of history in the game (more on that here). It wouldn’t necessarily be something that was honored, yet being a key aspect of the game’s history, it is needed.