Yankees Hall of Fame writers grapple with Barry Bonds

Yankees writers have already cast their votes for the HoF. Soon the baseball world will see the results. And a reflection of ourselves.

Yankees’ writers, at least the lucky few, get to vote on the MLB Hall of Fame. It’s a reward well deserved for dedicating at least a decade to covering baseball.

Some of them voted for Barry Bonds, and other reported PED users. It is likely that more voted for them than last year. I write today against that trend.

But before we proceed, I want to make it clear that everyone who was involved is under the same ban: Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez and Andy Pettitte should never be allowed into the HoF. This is not about Barry Bonds or any one single player.

Those men made their choices. Their legacies are written. No, this is about the voters and their own legacies, the ones they are currently writing.

We live in an immoral world. I understand that. I’ve even contributed to that immorality, at times. And it can be easy to lose your moral compass. We ask the same questions the Greeks did, in a Hellenistic age: What does it mean to be a good person when you feel lost in a larger and corrupt world?

The answer was as simple then as it is today: If you want to live in a moral world, a better world, if you want to be a good man, then simply make good, moral choices.

I know that can seem amorphous and esoteric to some in Yankees universe. Instead, let me give two very real-world examples.

Falling in a Wells

Back in 2007-2008, banks and investors finally crashed the system they had gamed for so long. They sneered and winked their way through their immoral banking world, reminding each other that others had done far worse before them.

As always in an economic crisis, the banks stopped loaning money. And without loans, the economy cannot crank up again. So the government called all the big banking heads together and almost forced them to accept a massive bailout.

One CEO objected, that of Wells Fargo. In a Rafael Palmeiro moment, newly appointed John Stumpf declared that his institution was run properly, had done nothing wrong, and was flush with cash. Wells’ prestige rose, and the bank’s reputation became pristine.