Nightengale: Bonds, Clemens belong in the Hall of Fame

• Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and other superstars tainted by PEDs deserve HOF votes
• The Hall of Fame is a museum of baseball, and the best players from the steroid era belong in it
• Fred McGriff's numbers are dwarfed by PEDs users, so he belongs in the Hall, too

Barry Bonds was the first name I checked on my Hall of Fame ballot.

Roger Clemens was the second name I checked.

Sammy Sosa was the third.

There was no hesitation. No moment of wavering. Didn't even blink.

Bonds, a seven-time MVP, might have been the greatest baseball player since Babe Ruth. Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, was one of the most dominant pitchers of the last 50 years. Sosa, the only man to hit 60 or more homers in three seasons, was one of the most prolific home run hitters we've ever seen.

Oh, the steroids debate?

None ever failed a drug test after Major League Baseball implemented testing in 2004. They were never suspended by MLB for steroids, human growth hormone, amphetamines or any other performance-enhancing drugs.

Clemens was exonerated on perjury charges for lying about steroid use in federal court. Bonds also beat perjury charges and was convicted only on an obstruction-of-justice charge that he's appealing.

Do I still believe they cheated? Absolutely.

Do I have proof? No.

Do I have strong suspicions that Mike Piazza and Jeff Bagwell cheated after witnessing their colossal changes in body type and performance? Absolutely.

Do I have any proof, beyond the whispers of teammates and close friends? Nope, sure don't.

Piazza, the greatest hitting catcher in baseball history, is a Hall of Famer. Bagwell had a Hall of Fame career and eventually will be inducted.

Rafael Palmeiro is the only player on this year's ballot who for certain tested positive for steroids. His positive came two months before he reached the magical 3,000-hit plateau, July 15, 2005. Major League Baseball was well aware of the test result. He was permitted to play while he secretly appealed, and MLB celebrated his historic 3,000-hit feat two weeks before his 10-day suspension.

Palmeiro insists to this day he did nothing wrong, that the positive must have come from a tainted B-12 shot administered by teammate Miguel Tejada. Few seem to believe him. He has never received more than 12.6% of the Hall of Fame vote.

I don't believe him either, but as one of only four players in baseball history to attain at least 3,000 hits and 500 homers, he gets my vote.

Simply, I refuse to exclude players who used performance-enhancing drugs from the Baseball Hall of Fame. It doesn't matter if they were suspected, caught, indicted or admitted their use on national TV. I don't care if Bonds or Clemens came out tomorrow and divulged every detail of their steroid use. Or Piazza informed everyone how a 62nd-round draft pick could possibly hit .250 with six homers in his second year in the minors and three years later hit 35 homers for the Los Angeles Dodgers. They still get my vote.

The Baseball Hall of Fame is not a cathedral. It is a museum of the history of the game.

And these players were the greatest of their era. It just so happens to be the steroid era.

Many were using the finest drugs available to enhance their own performance, and, in turn, they improved their team's chances of winning. Name a World Series champion from the last 25 years, and I'll name you at least one player strongly suspected of using steroids on that team.

We don't take away their trophy. We don't put an asterisk by their name or forfeit their regular-season victories like the NCAA. The San Francisco Giants' World Series championship wasn't celebrated any less because Melky Cabrera played two-thirds of the season before flunking his drug test.

Look, if steroids were available 50 years ago, some of the game's greatest players -- Bob Gibson, for one --say they likely would have taken them. Their drug of choice was amphetamines, with trainers passing them out like candy. They were also illegal to have without a prescription, but of the 59 living Hall of Fame players, you can fit in a broom closet the ones who never consumed a greenie.

The truth is that baseball's general managers and their coaching staffs never had a problem with players using performance-enhancing drugs. (And given how easily Cabrera scored a two-year, $16 million contract from the Toronto Blue Jays this offseason, they still don't.)

PED users were typically the most dedicated players on the team. They worked out more than most. They were the ones most concerned about nutrition. They got their sleep.

The only time baseball's executives really got angry was when they signed or traded for a player who was using performance-enhancing drugs, stopped taking them and saw his performance plummet.

It's baseball. Pitchers scuff or spit on the ball until they get caught. Hitters cork their bats. Managers and coaches steal signs. GMs try to find loopholes in the draft and waiver wire. Prospects lie about their age. Cheating will always be a part of baseball.

"Guys have always been cheating, period,'' Gibson said three years ago on the Mike and Mike in the Morning show. "I'm just glad they didn't have steroids when I was playing. . . . I probably would have a tendency to say, 'Let's try this and see what it does to me.' "

There are victims, of course, none bigger on this year's ballot than first baseman Fred McGriff. He had a .886 OPS (on-base-plus-slugging percentage) and, until the height of the steroid era in 2000, the 10th-highest OPS by anyone with at least 8,000 at-bats. Everyone ahead of him is in the Hall of Fame. He had six consecutive seasons of at least 30 homers, eight seasons of 100 or more RBI, nearly 900 more hits than Mark McGwire and more RBI and hits than Bagwell. McGriff says he never used PEDs. His body didn't change, and there weren't dramatic spikes in performance. Yet his numbers were dwarfed by the steroid era. He'll have my vote as long as he's on the ballot.

The rest of my votes go to Craig Biggio, one of the greatest offensive second basemen in history; Jack Morris, the greatest pitcher of the '80s; shortstop Alan Trammell, the Barry Larkin of his generation; and closer Lee Smith, who wasn't Mariano Rivera, or even Trevor Hoffman, but a was model of consistency.

Biggio is the only player this year whose induction is probable. Morris will be awfully close. Piazza, and likely Bagwell, will make it within a couple of years. Bonds and Clemens will make it too, but their entry will be delayed for perhaps another five years.

My feeling is that they shouldn't have to wait. We can't erase the steroid era from the record books, so let's make sure the greatest players from this era are honored at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Maybe it'll take a current Hall of Famer to admit he used performance-enhancing drugs. Maybe it'll take greater acceptance that steroids were used more pervasively than anyone could have envisioned. Maybe then, and only then, will enough voters believe that, although these players might be flawed, they deserve to be in Cooperstown.

Maybe then enough voters will come to terms with the era for these stained candidates to gain the ultimate honor.

Follow MLB columnist Bob Nightengale on Twitter:@BNightengale