The Cooperstown Juice Bar

(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

The biggest selling point I've ever seen for steroids isn't so much that everything gets so much stronger, it's that the muscles you're working recuperate so much quicker and maintain greater endurance, which is just as important as pure power over the course of the six-month daily slog we call the baseball season.

When Sammy started to really bomb was the year that he finally kept it all together for a full season. A guy struggling until the age of 25 or 26, I can understand. A guy struggling until 29, and then putting up numbers that would have you kicking the AI level up a notch on your PlayStation, makes me scratch my head.

All that said, I'd be pretty tempted to go ahead and vote Sammy in. But I can't really do that. He wasn't a Hall of Famer before his explosion, and his "no hablo ingles" performance in Congress was the biggest insult to the fans' collective intelligence since Latrell Sprewell's inflated grocery budget. And now, the news of his positive test makes it quite, quite easy to say...DENIED

Barry Bonds

Barry's the big fish. The government has slit its own throat trying to nail Barry Bonds to the cross. Books have noted conversations between Bonds and good friend Junior Griffey where Bonds looks at Mark and Sammy and says, "Hey, I want some of that."

But, really, if there was ever a guy who didn't need anything extra to go down as a legendary player, it was Barry.

He'd already had a 40-40 season, only the second in history.

He was already in the 400 HR-400 SB club...by himself. And no one's joined him since.

There was absolutely nothing to keep Barry out of the Hall of Fame even if he had RETIRED after 1998. But, instead, he turned into the Incredible Hulk and became the official symbol for the Era of Enhancement.

Still, like I said before, if you looked like a Hall of Famer before the juice appeared to enter your system, you should still be one afterward. APPROVED

Mark McGwire

I first began paying close attention to baseball in 1988, when I was nine years old. I'd heard about the Bash Brothers, and seriously dug the Oakland lineup, not just Canseco and McGwire, but also guys like Carney Lansford, Dave Henderson, Luis Polonia, and that killer pitching staff of Welch, Stewart, the Eck, Storm Davis, et al.

But a funny thing happened in 1989...Mark McGwire couldn't even hit his weight. Sure, he was getting on base and jacking long balls, but a .231 average? Ick.

1990, same thing.

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?