Bud Selig is sched­uled to step down as base­ball com­mis­sion­er lat­er this month, but the efflu­ence of his 23 years of mis­rule con­tin­ues to pol­lute.  On Tues­day, his sludge will flow into Coop­er­stown, when the results of this year’s Hall of Fame bal­lot­ing are announced.

Those results will attract the usu­al con­tro­ver­sy.  Coop­er­stown is the Ivy League of Halls of Fame, set­ting stan­dards far high­er than those that obtain in oth­er major Amer­i­can sports. Even very good play­ers don’t always make it in.  This year’s list of the jilt­ed is like­ly to include Don Mat­ting­ly, who is in his 15^th and last year on the bal­lot, Alan Tram­mell (14^th year) and Lee Smith (13^th year).  To make the Hall, a play­er must be named on 75 per­cent of bal­lots sub­mit­ted by base­ball writ­ers, a hide­bound and crotch­ety lot. Mat­ting­ly, Tram­mell and Smith all polled less than 30 per­cent last year.

Craig Big­gio was luck­i­er.  Sort of.  He was named on 74.8 per­cent of last year’s bal­lots,   just 2 votes short of the 429 he need­ed to win induc­tion.  This time around, he may get over the hump.

Fred McGriff prob­a­bly won’t.  McGriff is a mar­gin­al can­di­date – plen­ty good, but about aver­age or below for a Hall of Famer, accord­ing to the met­rics favored by baseball’s cognoscen­ti, known as saber­me­tri­cians.  McGriff hit 493 career homers, tying him with Lou Gehrig.  Had his career end­ed a decade soon­er, those homers would have been a gold-plat­ed cre­den­tial, vir­tu­al­ly assur­ing him induc­tion into the Hall.  But his career reached full flower dur­ing the 1990s and extend­ed into the ear­ly 2000s, when steroid use became pandemic.

In 1998, when Mark McG­wire and Sam­my Sosa engaged in their juiced-up com­pe­ti­tion that shat­tered Roger Maris’s sin­gle sea­son home run record, only 15 play­ers in the game’s his­to­ry had hit 500 home runs.  By 2009, when McGriff first appeared on the Hall of Fame bal­lot, an addi­tion­al 10 play­ers had crossed that thresh­old.  The eleventh (Albert Pujols) hit his 500^th homer last year.

Some of those play­ers, like Ken Grif­fey and Jim Thome, would like­ly have hit 500 even dur­ing eras when home runs were less com­mon.  Oth­ers, like the afore­men­tioned McG­wire and Sosa, are con­sid­ered frauds. The use of per­for­mance-enhanc­ing drugs (PEDs) was exten­sive enough to dis­ad­van­tage a play­er like McGriff.  His 493 career homers today seem like weak tea, rank­ing him in a tie for 27^th place and behind sev­er­al play­ers who are clear­ly unqual­i­fied for Cooperstown.

Bud Selig cheered on the offen­sive binge that pro­duced this defor­ma­tion.  The binge wasn’t worth the hang­over.  Selig’s defend­ers say that he nev­er sus­pect­ed that PED use was so com­mon, even though much of it was occur­ring in the lock­er rooms that belong to the own­ers and that are part of his domain.  If true, then he is incom­pe­tent and naïve.  If not – if he knew that the exploits the game was cel­e­brat­ing and he was pro­mot­ing weren’t hon­est­ly pro­duced – then he is cyn­i­cal and cor­rupt.   Either way, he should have stepped down as com­mis­sion­er once the extent of cheat­ing was exposed.

Instead, the cas­cad­ing effects of the Selig Steroid Era roll on, with play­ers being denied the game’s high­est hon­or because their accom­plish­ments seem small­er in the con­text of inflat­ed sta­tis­tics or because of evi­dence — and some­times mere whis­pers — of steroid abuse.  Some who are being exclud­ed are mere­ly good or great; oth­ers are among the great­est ever to step onto a diamond.

Bar­ry Bonds is such a play­er.  Even if we were to write off his sin­gle sea­son (73) and career (762) home run records as taint­ed, Bonds ranks along­side the best.  He excelled in all areas of the game.  He won 7 MVPs and fin­ished in the top 5 of bal­lot­ing in 12 of the 15 sea­sons between 1990 and 2004, was an All-Star 14 times, a 9‑time Gold Glover, and led left field­ers in assists six times.

He also walked 2,558 times, more than any play­er in his­to­ry.  That includes a record 688 inten­tion­al pass­es.  In 1998, he became the fifth play­er in base­ball his­to­ry – and the first in over half a cen­tu­ry – to be inten­tion­al­ly walked with the bases loaded.  It has since hap­pened just once.

Bonds stole 514 bases, which would rank him 14^th among Hall of Famers.  Most who are ahead of him either played dur­ing the Dead Ball Era or are in the Hall pri­mar­i­ly because of their base-steal­ing skills.  None hit more than 297 homers.  Bonds sur­passed that total in April of his tenth full season.

Bonds came hon­est­ly by that rare com­bi­na­tion of pow­er and speed.  In 1969, his father Bob­by became the first Nation­al League play­er in his­to­ry to hit at least 30 home runs and steal at least 30 bases, a feat he would achieve a record five times.  He now shares that record with his son Bar­ry, who had his fifth 30/30 sea­son in 1997.  But that rep­re­sent­ed a decline in the younger Bonds’ per­for­mance.  The pre­vi­ous year, he’d hit 42 home runs and stolen 40 bases, becom­ing only the third play­er in his­to­ry to achieve the 40/40 milestone.

The two who pre­ced­ed him, iron­i­cal­ly, also have been asso­ci­at­ed with steroid use: Alex Rodriguez and Jose Canseco, whose tell-all book exposed the preva­lence of PEDs that Selig had either hushed up or mere­ly man­aged not to notice.

Canseco’s alle­ga­tions, large­ly dis­missed at the time, proved accu­rate.  Wide­spread PED use led to an infla­tion of offen­sive sta­tis­tics.  But the sta­tis­tics Bonds amassed were infi­nite­ly supe­ri­or to those com­piled by the many steroid-using hit­ters (and pitch­ers) against whom he competed.

One such index pre­ferred by saber­me­tri­cians is known as Wins Above Replace­ment (WAR).  It seeks to express rel­a­tive over­all per­for­mance – hit­ting, field­ing, baserun­ning and pitch­ing – in a sin­gle num­ber.  Bonds led Nation­al League posi­tion play­ers in WAR 11 times and nev­er fin­ished low­er than fourth from 1989–2004.  His career WAR is 162.4.  Only Babe Ruth com­piled a high­er one.

He also led the league in OPS – the sum of on-base and slug­ging per­cent­ages — nine times and nev­er fin­ished low­er than third between 1989 and 2004.  A vari­a­tion of that sta­tis­tic known as OPS+ puts offen­sive out­put into con­text by com­par­ing a play­er to his peers and adjust­ing for the fact that some ball­parks are more con­ducive to offense than oth­ers.  An aver­age play­er in an aver­age ball­park in any sea­son has an OPS+ of 100.  Bonds’ career OPS+ is 182, which means that his offen­sive out­put was 82 per­cent high­er than the aver­age major lea­guers he played with and against.  Only Babe Ruth and Ted Williams were bet­ter when mea­sured against their cohorts.  Bonds sus­tained a lev­el of excel­lence through 22 sea­sons.  He nev­er had an OPS+ less than 114 after his rook­ie year and his OPS+ in 1992 and 1993, long before his sus­pect­ed steroid use began, was 200.

The exclu­sion from the Hall of Fame of baseball’s all-time home run leader is qual­i­ta­tive­ly dif­fer­ent from the exclu­sion of its all-time hits leader.  Pete Rose who, like Bonds, did him­self great rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age, does not oth­er­wise rank with the all-time greats.  His OPS+ was a respectable 118 but his OPS was just .784, far below the Hall of Fame aver­age (.838).  He ranks with the Richie Ash­burns and Carl­ton Fisks in that cat­e­go­ry, not with the Babe Ruths and Ted Williams.  And though he prid­ed him­self on being a “sin­gles hit­ter,” his on-base per­cent­age (.375) is about aver­age for a Hall of Famer.  He was undis­tin­guished as a field­er and base steal­er (198 career steals, 149 caught steal­ing) and won only one MVP.  He was by no means the best play­er of his era.  Rose’s WAR ranks behind 14 Hall of Famers whose careers over­lapped his.  That’s not to say that his cre­den­tials are defi­cient, only that he does not rank with the best of the best.  Bonds does.

So does Roger Clemens.  Clemens’ 354 wins places him ninth all-time and third among play­ers who retired after 1930, behind only War­ren Spahn and Greg Mad­dux.  Only Cy Young and Wal­ter John­son com­piled a high­er career WAR among pitch­ers.  He is sec­ond all-time behind Cy Young in adjust­ed pitch­ing wins, a sta­tis­tic that attempts to quan­ti­fy a pitcher’s con­tri­bu­tion to his team’s suc­cess.   And speak­ing of Cy Young, Clemens won sev­en of them, in three dif­fer­ent decades, and in 1986 became only the eighth pitch­er to win an MVP (three have done it since).   He led the league in ERA sev­en times and fin­ished sec­ond or third dur­ing three oth­er sea­sons.  Nolan Ryan is the only Hall of Famer who struck out more bat­ters than Clemens (4,672), although Randy John­son, who is on the bal­lot for the first time this year, also fanned more (4,875).

John­son is expect­ed to be elect­ed on Tues­day.  Pedro Mar­tinez, anoth­er pitch­er appear­ing on the bal­lot for the first time, has a very good shot.  Clemens has none – not this year, and per­haps not ever.

Bonds and Clemens are respon­si­ble for their own integri­ty. They are pay­ing a steep price for their trans­gres­sions.  Selig was respon­si­ble for the integri­ty of the game.  He failed spec­tac­u­lar­ly and has been spec­tac­u­lar­ly reward­ed, col­lect­ing a report­ed annu­al salary of $18.4 mil­lion.  Only Kene­saw Moun­tain Lan­dis served longer as base­ball com­mis­sion­er. Lan­dis rid the sport of its gam­bling scan­dal; under Selig, the more dam­ag­ing scan­dal of steroid use was hatched and took flight.

His longevi­ty and com­pen­sa­tion no doubt are tied to the fact that he deflect­ed respon­si­bil­i­ty for the scan­dal from him­self and base­bal­l’s front offices.  He and the own­ers who employ him nev­er were inves­ti­gat­ed for their poten­tial com­plic­i­ty.  Selig’s emails were nev­er exam­ined, his phone logs scru­ti­nized or his sub­or­di­nates ques­tioned as to what he knew and when he knew it.  Instead, he retained the law firm of for­mer Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader George Mitchell to pro­duce a report that impli­cat­ed scores of major league play­ers, includ­ing Clemens.  The game’s great­est assets – its integri­ty and play­ers – were thrown to the wolves.  Its great­est lia­bil­i­ty – Selig – was kept at a safe dis­tance from the carnage.

It is impos­si­ble to inven­to­ry all of the dam­age Selig has done.  It is not mere­ly that the game’s most revered records – sin­gle sea­son and all-time home runs – have been tar­nished or that the 500 home run thresh­old has been deval­ued and debased; not mere­ly that a gen­er­a­tion of the game’s stars has been placed under a cloud of sus­pi­cion; not mere­ly that two of the game’s all-time greats will not make it to the Hall; not mere­ly that he can­celed a World Series and sus­pend­ed an All-Star game; not mere­ly that his com­plic­i­ty or incom­pe­tence (your choice) in the wide­spread use of PEDs did the game irrepara­ble dam­age; not mere­ly that its fan base has dwin­dled and is rapid­ly aging or that its TV rat­ings have plum­met­ed so steeply that the World Series can scarce­ly com­pete with reg­u­lar sea­son foot­ball games; not mere­ly that base­ball is arguably the fifth most pop­u­lar sport behind the NFL, NBA, NASCAR and col­lege foot­ball; not mere­ly that the game attracts so few African-Amer­i­can ath­letes that they are out­num­bered on major league ros­ters by Domini­cans; not mere­ly that the depth, breadth and length of his malfea­sance defies mea­sure­ment and beg­gars description.

The worst of Bud Selig’s lega­cy is this: his suc­ces­sors will nev­er repair the deep and far-reach­ing harm that the sport suf­fered on his watch.

It is said that men don’t pay pros­ti­tutes for sex but to go away.  Baseball’s own­ers report­ed­ly will pay Selig $6 mil­lion annu­al­ly dur­ing his retire­ment, a small price to make him go away.

Too bad they didn’t do that before it was too late.