Fans already voted for the Hall of Fame ... with their feet.

Major league baseball had major credibility problems in 1919 and 1994.  In 1919 some players on the Chicago White Sox took money from gamblers to intentionally lose the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.

In 1994 the season ended in August with no playoffs because of "labor" conflict between owners and players.  That conflict spilled into the first couple of weeks of the next season.

In both cases fans were enticed back by big surges in home run hitting overall and with unprecedented record setting by individuals.  Attendance soared.

News flash for the sports writers who continue to inflame the situation: the fans really don't care.  If steroid use really bothered fans, they would have stayed home and not paid the exorbitant prices for tickets, parking, food, trinkets, etc., from which they are now starting to abstain ... now that home run hitting along with the economy is declining.

In both cases the owners knew what they were doing: juicing.  In the 1920s the ball was juiced.  1995-2005 the players were juiced.  What the heck.  It worked both times.

Now the decline begins.  Fans won't be distracted by the opiate of home runs.  The games are unwatchable because of all those walks and strike outs, which are a natural byproduct of home runs.  The home runs decline but walks and strike outs remain.  Combine that with a complete lack of imagination for making and keeping baseball entertaining and you have a trend that is deadly: boredom.

Baseball is boring.  Kids could care less.  They only attend because their parents bribe them: food, apparel, toys, amusement park stuff.  How many kids actually sit at a game and watch?  Combine that with kids not playing baseball and disaster looms.

Baseball is a boring vestige of our past that we will stop watching on TV making those big money TV deals vulnerable.  When ratings plunge, advertising money will flee.  Owners will be stuck with those huge player contracts recently signed. As written here recently, the demise of baseball will be evident around 2020.  Gee, a hundred years after the original home run explosion that made the steroid era seem puny.

The media types have gotten it all wrong.  If they ever notice, it will be way too late.  By then the fans will have voted again and moved on to stuff that is less boring.