For world history buffs, December 7 can only mean Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s phrase summing up the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor as “A day that will live in infamy.”

For devoted baseball fans who have abjured the sneak attack of steroids into their game for decades now, they may come to view December 7 upcoming vote in Orlando – in Disneyland – in much the same way.

Two of the villains of the steroid era, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants and Roger Clemens of several teams, are being thrown into a what-the-hell ERA Committee ballot that will be cast on the 7th to determine whether or not finally they can be included in baseball’s hallowed ground, the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. after all these years of being spurned by Hall voters due to their steroid involvement.

Those two players, along with six others that the Hall has scorned for one reason or another, were selected in what seemed to be a jerry-rigged sort of deal; one last try to get two of the game’s most accomplished players (Bonds’ 7 MVP’s, Clemens 7 Cy Young’s) into the hallowed hall. Pete Rose, the game’s all-time hits leader, might also have been included in this late sweep – he, too, had been banished. But Rose bowed out before they could tell him “no” one more time. He died.

These names will go before a 16-member panel and if elected, some of these eight will join the crew on July 26 in hallowed Cooperstown. Coming off what most agree was the most sensational World Series in years, the timing seems right for MLB to pull a fast one, which is exactly what this looks like.

Especially since MLB released an interesting comparable set of matching graphics to make the point. One graphic depicts the eight players not included in the Hall. They were all exceptional players – Bonds, Clemens, Bonds’ teammate Jeff Kent, barely more likeable than rattlesnake Barry, likable Carlos Delgado, two extremely sentimental choices, former Yankee Don Mattingly, who was on an Hall of Fame path until a bad back took him down, and former Atlanta Braves star Dale Murphy, a back-to-back MVP who wound up with 398 career homers and baseball won’t let him forget it.

The controversial, always in trouble, Gary Sheffield, a suspected roid user at least in part because of his extraordinarily quick-handed hitting style and an assortment of teams and perhaps the biggest sentimental choice of all, the Dodgers’ late Fernando Valenzuela, who’s rolled-eyes up in his head, high-kicking left-handed screwball delivery had all of San Fernando Valley singing Spanish love songs during his memorable run with the Dodgers before injuries wound him down and ultimately, out.

On the other side was a graphic depicting the 16 newly eligible players for the Hall of Fame, a collection of the unlikelys and improbables, an outfit statistically further away than they can imagine. “Oh my God, the Hall of Fame can’t come to this, can it?”

You have these eight, out on the rails with Roger Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner and a strongly suspected juicer or worse, the black-marked Barry Bonds, the game’s all-time home run champ and, if the allegations are true, someone who illustrated beyond statistical comprehension what a devastating combination steroid use and a singular baseball striking talent could be if used uniformly and others, worthy, accomplishment-wise, at least and these losers.

An eager bunch of just-retired players, understandably proud of their years in the majors, players wondering if any of them have the stuff to make it across to Valhalla. (they don’t) They don’t meet the standard. Not close. Not one of them.

Of the new potential Hall of Fame class, you have Hunter Pence and Jeff Samardzja and Chris Davis, (didn’t he go like 0-54 or something at the end of his career?) or the immortal Shin Soo-Choo. No. I’m not kidding. Shin Soo-Choo’s name will be on the next Hall of Fame ballot.

If Texas and California can re-district to get votes the way they want, what if we jerry-rig a special vote – since all these “deplorables” had previously been already squeezed out of Hall of Fame balloting, let this new “ERA Committee” take the heat, we’ll knuckle them ‘em in, put some blast on their plaque about their misdeeds and restore the Hall to what it was supposed to be in the first place, a place to celebrate the game’s very best players, not the best citizens.

That, baseball fans, is what’s ahead on December 7. A day of infamy, indeed.

John Nogowski is a former Connecticut resident, author and sports writer. His book, “Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography 1961-2022” is available online at Amazon.