Barry Bonds is still not in the Hall of Fame, which is a silly museum that doesn’t deserve your money

Let that picture up there be a reminder. Let it be a reminder of just how much Bud Selig, Hall of Famer, was complicit. Let it be a reminder of just how much he personally benefited from players taking performance-enhancing drugs and shattering records. Let it be a reminder of how easy it was for him to stick his head in the sand and pretend he wasn’t there the second it became convenient and politically advantageous. Look at the smile on his face. Ol’ Smilin’ Bud, just happy to be there.

This comes up now because Barry Bonds isn’t in the Hall of Fame, a museum designed to honor the best players who ever played baseball. Having a museum dedicated to the greatest baseball players and not including Barry Bonds is like a ...

• Van Halen Hall of Fame without a David Lee Roth plaque
• Bayless Family Hall of Fame with Skip, but no Rick
• museum of The Worst Things That Can Happen To Your Tongue without paper cuts
• Pizza Toppings Hall of Fame that’s just wing after wing of pineapple

And so on. We do this every year, and it’s not getting less infuriating. The Hall of Fame as a reward for playing baseball well and not getting under the skin of writers? That’s a dumb idea for a museum. The Hall of Fame as a way to tell the story of baseball, warts and all? That’s a great idea for a museum.

Instead, here’s what you get when you look for pictures of Barry Bonds in the Hall of Fame:

That’s Marc Ecko, who took some time away from designing T.J. Maxx sweatpants to brand a baseball and buy some cheap publicity. The Hall of Fame was VERY interested in this contribution to their silly museum, but they aren’t as interested in a plaque that honors one of the greatest hitters in history.

Here, have a Bud Selig plaque. Preferably with this image:

Getty Images

The kids all love to visit the Bud Selig plaque and talk about how great it was to watch him commision things. The story of baseball, right there.

Bonds received 56.4 percent of the vote, which is actually an improvement from his 53.8 percent last year. There’s still a chance that he gets in before 2023, which is the first year he would be off the ballot, but there’s a strong chance that 25 percent of the voters are chronic dillweeds who love to vote against Bonds and Roger Clemens as a way to forget their own irrelevance and eventual demise.

Imagine thinking there should be a Hall of Fame that doesn’t include the career and single-season leader in home runs, but should include Selig. Imagine!

I don’t want to imagine, actually.

Anyway, this is all to suggest that the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a silly museum, and the only way I’ll spend money to get there is if I can stand outside of it with a placard, handing out pamphlets and singing Barry Bonds protest songs on an acoustic guitar.

Which ...

I mean, Kickstarter and Gofundme are things now ...

I’ll be right back.