Stark: It’s over for Bonds, Clemens — 5 things we learned from the Hall of Fame

SAN DIEGO — It wasn’t just an election. It was a proclamation.

The headlines will say that the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee unanimously elected Fred McGriff to the Hall of Fame on Sunday. And that in itself is cause for celebration.

But in elections like this one, it isn’t just the player who got elected who was the story. In some ways, the players who didn’t get elected represented an even bigger story, a more momentous statement of where the Hall of Fame goes from here.

I’m thinking of two of those players in particular, but also of their entire tainted generation. So let’s start there, as we contemplate …

Five Things We Learned from the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee election.

1. Slam the door on Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and the performance-enhancing drugs generation

Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds couldn’t even muster four votes apiece. (Matt York / Getty Images)

It’s over. It’s all over for Barry Bonds. And for Roger Clemens. And, when you really think this through, for the whole generation of PED history makers who haven’t already sneaked into the Hall.

What’s the scenario now where any of them ever walk to the podium in Cooperstown on any Induction Weekend? I’m no visionary, but I can’t see one.

I guess I can’t predict how some era committee might vote in 50 years — or 500 years. So I’m going to stop myself from using the word, “never.” And also “ever.” But the vote of this committee feels like a deal-breaker … and a debate-ender … for the foreseeable future, at least.

There were 16 ballot casters who stepped into the Era Committee voting booth. Bonds and Clemens couldn’t even collect four votes apiece. They needed 12 votes to start working on their induction speeches. That was never going to happen.

So whaddaya know. It turned out that the baseball writers were actually their best shot — and quite possibly, their only shot. They both cleared the 60 percent bar in their final appearance on the writers’ ballot last year. You think they’ll ever top 60 percent in any election in which the voters include clean players they played against? Ha.

How about executives who are probably terrified of being viewed as sympathetic to two men who have become this radioactive in the industry? There will always be four or five of those folks on these committees, too.

Remember, it only takes five “no” votes or “non” votes to prevent any candidate from getting 75 percent in this 16-voter format. So what version of this committee will ever be made up of a group so open to a Bonds/Clemens induction extravaganza that there won’t even be five “no’s” in the room? Hard to imagine.

So that’s The End for them, right? Bonds and Clemens had 10 chances on the writers’ ballot and never made it. Now they’ve been rebuffed by a different group of voters. So will they even get another shot when this committee meets again three years from now? They might not.

Rafael Palmeiro, one of only seven members of the 3,000-Hit/500-Homer Club, was also on this ballot. He failed to get four votes, either.

And if you think Alex Rodriguez or Manny Ramirez are ever getting elected by the writers, you’ve been analyzing very different Hall of Fame election results than I have.

So let’s stop and recognize what just happened. The PED sentences have been handed down now. And it sure looks as though they’re lifetime sentences.

Oh, not for everyone, of course. The Hall asked us, the writers, to play an impossible guessing game of who did what before testing and suspensions kicked in. We were really, really not good at that game. But of course we weren’t. It was impossible.

So I don’t know how many PED users we’ve elected to the Hall already. Five? Ten? More? Less? Whatever. It now looks as if that’s probably going to be it — from an entire generation.

But hold your applause out there. I want you to consider what that means in the big picture. It means this is going to be a Hall of Fame that is unlike anything the founders could possibly have envisioned when the plaque gallery honored its first members nine decades ago.

It means the all-time home run king (Bonds) will be missing from this Hall of Fame.

It means the all-time Cy Young Award king (Clemens) will be missing from this Hall of Fame.

The guy who broke Roger Maris’ exalted home run record (Mark McGwire)? No plaque for him.

The man with more 60-homer seasons than any hitter who ever lived (Sammy Sosa, with three of them)? No plaque for him, either.

And then there’s the Hit King (Pete Rose). Don’t plan any future trips to go see his plaque in this Hall of Fame. He wrote an eloquent letter recently, taking one last shot at finding sympathy from the commissioner. But there was none to be found.

So think about this now. Are you sure that’s the kind of Hall of Fame you want? Is it the kind of Hall of Fame baseball should want? Just asking — because I’ll admit I feel a little funny about…