Barry Bonds repeated what he’s said many times before on Saturday: he knows in his heart that he’s a Hall of Famer. He also thinks someone else important does, too.
“God knows I’m a Hall of Famer,” Bonds said via ESPN’s Mark Saxon at a Saturday press conference where Bonds formally spoke to the media for the first time as the hitting coach of the Marlins.
“I know that I’m a Hall of Fame player,” Bonds continued. “I don’t really need to get into that. I’ll leave that to you guys to make that determination. That’s not my fraternity.
“But in my fraternity, in Major League Baseball, there’s not one player that ever could sit there and say that I’m not one. There’s not a coach who ever coached me that says I’m not one.”
Bonds received 44.3 percent of the vote in the most recent Hall of Fame balloting, leaving him well short of the required 75 percent needed for election. There is absolutely no argument as to whether he had a Hall of Fame career, but there is also unquestionably a fair number of writers who would never vote for him due to the allegations of steroid use that still surround him, not to mention at least one former player.
Bonds has asserted his Hall qualifications before, and he’s admitted that he does care about the honor. It’s hard to say whether or not Bonds will get in one day, but if he does, it probably won’t be soon.
