CHICAGO — After years of debate over the Hall of Fame worthiness of players linked to performance-enhancing drugs, baseball’s Steroids Era stands trial this weekend in San Diego at the 2022 winter meetings.
If Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are selected to the Hall of Fame by the 16-member Contemporary Era committee that convenes Sunday, reversing 10 years of voting results by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, it could open the doors to the hallowed museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., to Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and others whose otherwise stellar careers were tainted by PED allegations.
But if Bonds and Clemens don’t get 75% of the vote, they’ll have to wait at least three more years and a precedent will have been set for a different group of voters that will decide on the next Contemporary Era ballot (1980s-present) in 2025.
