Trevor Bauer Defends Barry Bonds' Hall of Fame Case After Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa '30 for 30'

While Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire were the featured stories in ESPN's "Long Gone Summer", which detailed the home run chase of 1998 and the so-called "steroid era" in the latter part of the decade, the documentary helped remind everyone that former San Francisco Giants superstar Barry Bonds put up numbers that were so dominant they're almost impossible to recreate in a video game, let alone in real life.

Cincinnati Reds starter Trevor Bauer is one of many who thinks that, despite his involvement with illicit substances, Bonds deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

Bonds, like anyone else who had even a tangential involvement with any sort of steroid or performance-enhancing drug, has an extremely divisive case for Cooperstown that will be debated until the end of time. Some believe that beefing up his body with illegal substances qualifies as cheating and disqualifies him from the Hall, while some think his numbers are so unreal and he was so dominant that he deserves a spot with the rest of the greats.

One of the pro-Bonds camp's favorite points to hammer home was how players that are in the Hall of Fame have admitted to using substances like amphetamines and "greenies" back in the day because they were not illegal, and Bauer used that point in support of Bonds. He also claimed that it's naive to think every single Hall of Famer made it to Cooperstown without performance-enhancing drugs.

You've got Craig Biggio in "Long Gone Summer" endorsing creatine, for Chrissakes!

If any steroid user is going to make it into the Hall, Bonds has to be the first. Bauer, like so many others, will not rest until baseball's home run king is given baseball's highest individual honor.