Pedro Martinez is eligible to be inducted into the Hall of Fame next year, and there is no reason to believe he won’t get in on the first ballot. Pedro thinks Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds should join him.
Clemens and Bonds have been eligible for the past two years, but neither has received enough votes to earn a spot in Cooperstown. Their numbers are certainly Hall of Fame-worthy, but their association with performance-enhancing drugs has essentially blacklisted them. Martinez doesn’t think that’s right.
“With all due respect to everybody that votes, I’ll have to say Roger and Barry Bonds are two guys that I think had enough numbers before anything came out to actually earn a spot in the Hall of Fame,” Pedro said Thursday while being inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame with Clemens, via Joe McDonald of ESPNBoston.com. “I’m not quite sure 100 percent how close they will be before all the things came out, but in my heart, if you asked me before any of that, I would’ve said, ‘Yes, 100 percent,’ without looking back.”
Bonds claims he “unknowingly” took banned substances while Clemens has vehemently denied ever using steroids or PEDs. Current Hall of Famers have said they will boycott the Hall of Fame if known PED users get in, but Martinez believes Bonds and Clemens were dominant enough before all the steroid talk surfaced.
“It wasn’t just the individual performances. [It was] how they dominated the time that they came up and stayed in the big leagues until those things happened,” Pedro said. “I believe they have a legit chance, and I think, with time, the voters will take into consideration what they did previously.”
Part of what makes Martinez’s career so incredible is that he dominated hitters during the height of the steroid era. As someone who has never been associated with PEDs, you would think Pedro would be opposed to cheaters getting the Cooperstown nod. Kudos to him for taking the high road.
