It has been five years since one of the greatest hitters of all time retired from the San Francisco Giants, and he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

Barry Bonds is the all-time leader in homeruns, and has a record seven MVP awards. That is more than Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle combined.

Bonds is one of four players to ever earn 40 steals and 40 homeruns. He was walked 2,558 times, over 200 times in 2004 alone.

The steroid cloud surrounds Bonds, and he became the poster boy for an era of guys that were using performance-enhancing drugs. But to say that he was not one of the best hitters in the history of baseball is ridiculous.

In his 22 years in the Majors, Bonds stole over 500 bases and had an OPS of over 1.051. Bonds hit over 600 doubles, and he came up as a center fielder, and went on to win eight gold gloves in the outfield.

It is easy to say that he was a cheater, and cheaters should not get in. Fine, but he played 15 years in San Francisco, which is far from being an easy place to hit the ball out of the park.

In fact, it is one of the best pitchers parks in the Major Leagues. Yet Bonds hit 40 homeruns eight times with his home park being AT&T Park.

Let’s also remember that those Home Runs were not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. Those balls were landing in the ocean. People had boats parked outside of right field in hopes of getting a souvenir, and they were widely successful.

Bonds won the Silver Slugger award five straight times- twice. From 1990-1994 and then again from 2000-2004, he won the award a total of 12 times.

For those of us into saber metrics, Bonds had a double-digit WAR three times, and a WAR eclipsing 9.0 six different times.

In his only World Series appearance, he hit four homeruns, walked 13 times, and had a batting average of .471. I would consider that clutch in the fall classic.

So we can be mad that he cheated, and that he did not respect the game. We can be mad that he was not a good example for the children and that he was rude to the media. But to keep the greatest hitter of our generation out of the Hall of Fame is a crime in itself.