What Pete did was not legal (betting while not in Nevada or Atlantic City at the time).  It was also specifically prohibitted by major league baseball existing rules at the time he acted (the key fact he is not in the Hall, not the illegal part).

What Barry did was illegal (if steroids) as it was an illegal substance if not taken using a perscription.  However, it was not specifically prohibitted by major league baseball at the time.  This is why Rafael Palmeiro probably won't get in, he did it after it was specifically prohibitted.  I think Barry still gets in, even if he is convicted.

All that being said, I kind of hope Barry will not get in to the Hall. I think his entire career is tainted if he is found guilty.  He might have reached 500(probably).  But are there around 250 questionable home runs? You could pretty easily look at the stats and say yes.  Sure he could have hit them anyway, but that's the crux of the question.  Was he great early in his career.  Yep.  So were a lot of other people that are not in the Hall due to injury plagued/shortened careers.

And I am not saying Pete should not be in the Hall of Fame.  I am actually undecided now.  Used to think he should be in based on his performance on the field.  More and more I am turning to, "You know what, why reward people that are being bastards off the field?"  Future bastards should know that the possibility they don't get accolades DOES ride on the fact your a bastard.  Maybe then we would have fewer bastards in sport. Or at least out of the closet ones.  If you want to be an in the closet bastard, ok with me, just don't parade it.  Maybe more teams will let those kinds of guys just drift off to become drug dealers or the dregs of society who eventually get what's coming to them because they know 'fans' don't really care about only the 'best' athletes playing for their team.

No offense meant to people that were born out of wedlock as the term bastard here is meant to imply a person that does not act in a manner generally moral and nice as compared to the rest of civilized society (is that politically correct for you knee-jerkers?).  Most times I have ever used that term in a couple of paragraphs, that felt kind of fun.

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It will read something lame like * In 2008 Bonds was convicted of doing what everyone in MLB had been doing for quite awhile.

Bond's crime... he perfected the use of performance enhancing drugs. He was so vastly superior to all the other dirty drug users that it embarassed all of baseball.

What's really amazing is that Barry was one of the best players in Baseball when everyone else was dirty. A Dirty Barry was the best player of all time and it wasn't particulary close.

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He's still undoubtedly a HOF player and still one of the top 10 Players of all time.

All this coming from a Rockies fan. I've got a lot of respect for the player known as Barry Bonds. Our whole team was hopped up on roids in the 90's. Everyone's teams were.

One final thought. Nobody in this country is free to lie except for Presidents and powerful people in positions of unbelieveable power.

where the hell was paul elias of the associated press this season? living with his head under a rock, in a cave, on mars? somebody should let him know that bonds actually did pass aaron's career mark. or was that whole paragraph copy & pasted from an article a year old?