Alex Rodriguez sees hypocrisy in Hall of Fame with Selig but no steroid players

Alex Rodriguez will see his name on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for the Class of 2026 for the fifth time, but despite his illustrious career numbers, he’s unlikely to make it given his ties to performance-enhancing drugs.

But Rodriguez thinks “the Hall is beset by hypocrisy” because of Bud Selig, the former MLB commissioner who was in charge during the infamous Steroid Era and resides in Cooperstown.

“Everything you mentioned was under Bud Selig’s watch,” Rodriguez said following a comment he made about Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa on Stephen A. Smith’s radio show. per Terrible Announcement.

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“And the fact that these two guys aren’t in the Hall of Fame, but somehow Bud Selig is in the Hall of Fame, seems to me like there’s a little bit of hypocrisy in that.”

Rodriguez and any Hall of Fame player need at least 75% of the vote to enter the Hall. Rodriguez’s results are not expected to change in 2026, as he did not receive 40 percent of the votes in any of the first four ballots.

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Selig was inducted into the Hall of Fame after receiving enough votes from the Today’s Age of Play Committee, which had only 16 voters. Meanwhile, Rodriguez, Bonds and other players linked to PEDs throughout their careers have a much larger pool of Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) members who vote for them each year.

Selig, 91, took over as acting commissioner in 1992 and became full-time commissioner in 1998. Serving through the 2015 season, Selig was at the forefront of the Steroid Age and all the controversies that came with it.

Commissioner Emeritus Allan H. “Bud” Selig speaks during the 2017 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday, July 30, 2017 in Cooperstown, New York. (Photo: Alex Trautwig/MLB via Getty Images)

While it was fun to see players like McGwire and Sosa battle each other for the single-season home run record in 1998, and also Bonds hitting 73 home runs in 2001, breaking McGwire’s previous record of 70, there were rumors and reports in the sport that PEDs should not be recognized by MLB until 2004.

The Joint Medicines Agreement was implemented that season and the infamous Mitchell Report was published on 13 December 2007. The 20-month investigation by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell led to a 409-page report alleging a “collective failure” within MLB to address the PED problem and naming 89 current and former players who allegedly used them.

Those listed in the Mitchell Report included Bonds, Jason Giambi and Jeremy Giambi, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, Eric Gagne, Andy Pettitte, Brian Roberts, Miguel Tejada, Mo Vaughn, Jose Canseco and many more.

Alex Rodriguez broadcasts before Game Six of the National League Championship Series at Dodger Stadium on October 20, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)

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In Rodriguez’s case, he was serving the longest suspension in league history for his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal, in which a clinic in Florida was accused of distributing PEDs to world-famous athletes. Rodriguez was initially given a 211-game suspension, but that suspension was later reduced to 162 games and he was forced to miss in 2014.

Despite being fifth in home runs during his long MLB career, Rodriguez won’t be in the Hall of Fame anytime soon without Bonds. Bonds still holds the home run record with 762 home runs in over 12,606 plate appearances.

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