The New York Times welcomed, well, no one to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Thursday.
The paper printed a mostly blank front page in its sports section under the headline "Welcome to Cooperstown" after the Baseball Writers Association of America announced on Wednesday that not a single candidate on the 2013 ballot — including Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — received enough votes to join the ranks of the sport's elite players.
It marked the first time since 1996 that no living players on the regular ballot will be inducted. Several posthumous picks, including 19th Century players Deacon White and Hank O'Day, were chosen by a separate Hall of Fame panel.
"Wayne Kamidoi, our boundary pushing art designer came up with the idea, and Jay Schreiber, our baseball editor saw the chance to capture the very old, very dispiriting story of steroids in baseball in a freshly powerful way. Yes, it was not a surprise that Bonds and Clemens didn't make it," Times sports editor Joe Sexton told TheWrap in an email. "But felt like history had spoken. How to convey that to our readers? I think we did it — a striking, profound emptiness."
Bonds, a star former outfielder for the San Francisco Giants, admitted to using steroids — though he said he didn't know they were performance enhancing drugs at the time.
Clemens was also accused of using steroids. He denied the allegations and, was clear of charges when tried for pergury after allegedly lying to a Congressional committee about the drug use.
