Barry Bonds Says He Deserves to Be in Baseball Hall of Fame: 'I Was Vindicated'

MLB home run king Barry Bonds remains outside the hallowed Baseball Hall of Fame as steroid accusations continue to follow him.

Bonds was asked on the Hollywood Swingin' with Stephen Bishop and Jerry Hairston Jr. podcast if the exclusion still bothers him, and he responded honestly, noting how he felt he was "vindicated" in a steroids case more than a decade ago.

"Yeah, does it bother you? Sure. I'm human, I'm not some wall sitting up here [who] doesn't care," Bonds said, per Angelina Martin of NBC Sports Bay Area & California.

"Sure, it bothers you. But at the same time, I also know who I am. And the thing is that people have to understand ... I was vindicated. I went to the court, I was in federal court, and I won my case, 100 percent.

"Where is the vindication of me in my own sport? That's what bothers me."

Regarding those accusations, Bonds believes that he was "vindicated" when a jury in a steroids case didn't reach a verdict on whether he lied to a grand jury in 2003 about using performance-enhancing drugs.

Tom Goldman of NPR stated at the time:

"Baseball slugger Barry Bonds has been found guilty of obstruction of justice. The jury failed to reach a verdict on three other counts that the home run king lied to a grand jury in 2003 when he specifically denied that he knowingly used steroids and human growth hormone."

Bonds remains out of the Hall despite hitting 762 home runs. He broke Hank Aaron's previous all-time record of 755 in 2007. Yet Cooperstown has shunned him, and Bonds remains puzzled.

"Whether they were broken or not broken, there were rules, some rules. My era, there was no rules," Bonds said. "Why is the Hall of Fame punishing me? It doesn't make sense."

Bonds also made the point that he wasn't convicted in criminal court. He also added that there weren't rules against performance-enhancing drug usage when he played in the bigs.

"I appealed that charge, and I won. I'm not under federal, I'm not a criminal of any kind, I'm not anything," Bonds said (h/t Martin).

"[My] Major League Baseball records are still there, and I try to tell everybody this ... I don't care if they want to judge athletes on performance enhancing drugs or not, it doesn't matter. Major League Baseball, and let's get this clearly and straight, had a rule and has rules, OK?"

Bonds was first eligible to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013. He received 36.2 percent of the votes, well short of the 75 percent needed to make Cooperstown. More voters slowly came over to Bonds' side over the next decade, but he topped out at 66 percent in his last year on the ballot (2022).

He was eligible to get into the Hall through a vote of the Contemporary Baseball Era committee in December, but he fell well short of the 12 votes needed for the 16-person group. His next chance to get in through that committee will be in 2026.