If Brady Deserves the HOF, Doesn't Bonds as Well?

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When you begin to think about the best athletes of the 2000s, it’s not very hard to figure out who it is in the NFL and MLB. The real question to be asked is if Tom Brady deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, doesn’t Barry Bonds as well

No one can argue the statistical facts about either player. It’s the ethical part that has fans and writers in a state of confusion.

Brady is regarded as the greatest quarterback of all time and played 23 years in the NFL. During that time, he won a total of 7 Super Bowls, 6 of them during his 20-year tenure with the New England Patriots and the other with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. During his time in the NFL, he was Super Bowl MVP 5 times and was chosen to the Pro Bowl 15 times. His list of accomplishments is several pages long.

Meanwhile, Bonds’ success in MLB is equally impressive. He, like Brady, is considered to be one of the greatest players of all time in his sport. Similar to Brady, his career in baseball lasted for 22 seasons as he played with the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1986-1992 and for the San Francisco Giants from 1993-2007. Besides being the all-time home run king with 762, he is also a 14-time all-star, 7-time MVP, 8-time gold glove winner, and a 12-time silver slugger. Along with those accomplishments, he holds many MLB records including career home runs, single-season home runs, 2558 career walks, and several more.

There is no doubt with these numbers that both these athletes are worthy of the Hall of Fame in their respective sports, but it’s more complicated than just the numbers.

Both of these athletes have had issues when it comes to cheating. Brady with deflategate and Spygate and Bonds with PEDs.

Let’s start with Bonds. Although many people speculate that he used PEDs, he never tested positive for the use. Lots of players and writers are upset with Bonds because they believe that he took jobs away from other players who did it the right way. I disagree and this is why. While PEDs do add extra strength to one’s body it does not help them hit a baseball or field a position. They don’t help you have better eye contact, they don’t give you the ability to lay off a pitch, they don’t help you make contact and it doesn’t help you catch and throw the ball. All those qualities are based on hard work and ability. Did Bonds do something wrong? Absolutely he did.

Meanwhile, Mr. Brady was no saint. He was on teams that spied and he was accused of being aware of a plot to deflate footballs. Although he denied all accusations he was suspended for the first four games of the 2016 season while the team was handed a $1 million fine and lost two draft picks.

So one may ask why is what’s right for one not right for the other. At the end of the day, both of these athletes deserve to be in the Hall of Fame because of what they accomplished on the field. They were definitely the best players of their time, not because of what they did wrong, but because of what they did right. Let’s stop trying to find reasons why they shouldn’t be Hall of Famers because when all is said and done, the reasons why they should definitely outweigh the reasons why they should not.