Bonds’ punishment for cheating the game is not a tangible sentence — a suspension, a fine, community service of some kind — but instead to pretend that his legendary seasons never happened, that he simply ceased to exist. This is how we often handle such things: We pretend...in this way, we can pretend that Henry Aaron still holds the all-time home run record and Barry Bonds was not, in actuality, one of the greatest players in baseball history.

I get all of this. The trouble I have is that I don’t think avoiding reality is much of an answer.

My best guess is that Bonds is not going to the Hall of Fame anytime soon. I don’t believe the Baseball Writers’ Association of America will vote him in, and I certainly don’t believe the Hall of Fame veterans committees will be eager to honor him. I used to wonder how long the Hall of Fame could maintain its place in baseball royalty without the all-time hit leader (Pete Rose), the all-time home run leader (Bonds), perhaps the greatest pitcher who ever lived (Roger Clemens), the most perfect home run machine of them all (Mark McGwire) and one of the most beloved baseball folk heroes in the game’s history (Shoeless Joe Jackson) along with, in the famed words of John Updike, gems of slightly lesser water, such as Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramírez, Rafael Palmeiro, Kevin Brown, Gary Sheffield and, perhaps soon, Alex Rodríguez.

I don’t wonder about this anymore. The Hall of Fame — and baseball fans generally — seem perfectly comfortable enough with the dissonance. Thirty years ago, the only truly great player missing from the Hall of Fame because of his “character” was Shoeless Joe, who took money from gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series. Now, as you can see, the list of such players is vast and rapidly growing and the Hall of Fame means something different from what it used to mean.

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