No Betting Or Steroids, Yet Baseball Star Still A Hall Of Fame Snub

BusinessSportsMoneyNo Betting Or Steroids, Yet Baseball Star Still A Hall Of Fame SnubByChuck Murr,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Chuck analyzes and writes about baseball, soccer & other sports.Follow AuthorMay 17, 2026, 03:01pm EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.BOSTON: Infielder Ross Barnes, a star of baseball's National Association (1871–75) and the early National League (1876–81), in a Boston Redstockings uniform. Photograph by Warren's (Firm), Boston, MA, 1874. From the New York Public Library. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).Getty ImagesMove over, Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Barry Bonds. A guy who played 150 years ago should have been in the National Baseball Hall of Fame long before you fellas were ostracized. Ross Barnes’ exciting exploits helped popularize the neophyte sport. His style just may have kept the game from not succeeding due to otherwise boring play and time-consuming slowness.Unlike Rose, banned for life for betting, Jackson, banned for allegedly betting, and Bonds, shunned by many voters for illegal use of steroids, Barnes’ only problem was he got sick. After six sensational seasons he contracted a malaria-type illness that sapped him of his strength, stamina and career.Though he attempted to keep playing, he played only three more seasons at a much-diminished level. His nine total years leave him ineligible for consideration for baseball’s highest honor.The initial voting rules for the National Baseball Hall of Fame were devised in 1936 by its’ board of directors, led by National League President Ford Frick. Henry P. Edwards, former sports editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and founder of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) drew up the ballot and the rules. One rule is “must have played 10 seasons of Major League Baseball”.Barnes played nine, totally...