Being a successful baseball writer comes with responsibility. The esteemed members of the Baseball Writers Association of America have found themselves in a position that will set the precedent for every Hall of Fame class to come. Last year they chose to pass on Mark McGwire, a time long before the Mitchell Report when Barry Bonds was the only other prestigious name to be implicated in these scandals. Now they are accompanied by at least 88 others.
With McGwire being the first one to the alter, it was justifiable to leave him out in the cold, but now that Roger Clemens’ name has also surfaced it’s become clear that some type of standard has to be set in place. A frighteningly large number of the voters have been publishing articles stating they chose not to vote for McGwire because he was a career .263 hitter, not because of his alleged steroid use. This is quite interesting considering it’s coming from the same people that were gushing over the slugger during his pursuit of Roger Maris’ single season home run record. I don’t think there was a negative word wrote about this man until he stood before Congress and refused to speak about his playing days.
I honestly believe that if he wouldn’t have set this mark he wouldn’t be facing these problems today. If you were a baseball fan in 1998 you were cheering for McGwire, it was one of the greatest seasons of all time, and it catapulted McGwire to Paul Bunyan like status. A lot of these writers became engulfed with the epic chase, and it bled over into their writing. We were naïve, and after the meeting with Congress, we felt cheated, short changed, violated.
Personal feelings have to be set aside, the fact of the matter is, McGwire did nothing wrong. Technically. He was within the parameters of the rules to use, that is, if he did at all. If Cooperstown is to remain a hallowed ground, then this is more than enough to black ball him from the club. It’s reasonable to believe that most, if not all, of McGwire’s 583 home runs were fueled by some type of PED. Without the homers, he does not deserve to be placed in the pantheon of baseball greats along with Stan Musial or Mickey Mantle.
So what happens with Bonds and Clemens? We know they both started using to prolong their careers, and prior to this they had already pieced together Hall of Fame careers. Any player with 400 steals and 400 homers deserves to be enshrined, and Clemens amassed 5 of his 7 Cy Young awards with out PEDs, according to his trainer. Do we keep these guys out altogether? Or do we let them in with a note stating that certain years are omitted? How does this work?
This whole thing is a mess. More and more names are going to continue to trickle out over the next five or so years, some may already be enshrined before we are made aware. If such an event were to occur, I’m sure it would be dealt with accordingly, but some type of resolution needs to be made. Don’t hide behind McGwire’s average, he might be a one trick-pony, but few were better than him at placing the ball in the stands. His body of work is Hall worthy, and if you say otherwise, you’re kidding yourself.
This is such a confusing time for everybody involved, and everyone is in dire need of answers. The voters need to face this thing head on, take their stance, and stick too it. There’s no room for leeway.
Personally, I don’t think anyone should be kept out. Steroids are embedded into the game, the damage is done, and that’s not going to change. The best players of this time deserve to be honored. The question is, do they deserve to be enshrined next to those that played by the rules? I think the best solution is to give players that were suspected of wrong doing their own wing, quarantine them so they don’t desecrate the past, but instead embrace it. We need to let our future generations know what happened. There’s no reason to try and bury it. Something like this would send a louder message to Bonds than any heckler ever could. He doesn’t care about prison, or anything else that you could throw at him, what matters to him is how he is remembered as a baseball player.
This is first step toward closure, the fans need to see how the game is going to move forward from it’s latest blow. They deserve it.
These writers have a lot of questions to answer on December 31, here’s to them doing the right thing… whatever that is.
RSS Updates
Email Updates
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I thought your rationale for voting them in was as good as any other I have heard, but I still don’t fully agree with it.
How will you determine who really took performance enhancers? What if Clemens really didn’t juice- it wouldn’t then be fair to put him in the ‘roid wing of the HOF. What if a guy from the non-roid wing, was accused years later of juicing? Do they move his bust?
Basing their location on being “suspected” is McCarthyism. It isn’t that I think a wing like that is 100% wrong idea, I just think there are less-wrong answers. My opinion, and yes, they are based on suspicions, is to just not vote them in. Their tainted numbers skewed what we think of as Hall of Fame Career Numbers and hurt players like Jim Rice, Andre Dawson and the like. Again, I realize that my thinking is based on assumptions that Dawson and Rice didn’t juice and McGwire did, but that’s why the HOF has so many people vote and not just one or two writers.
Lastly I completely disagree with you saying McGwire did nothing wrong. Again, I am assuming he juiced, but if steroids weren’t wrong why did he not tell people then that he was doing steroids? Because he knew they were wrong!
Having an affair is legal in the United States. But if you rail a married dude’s wife are you going to tell him about it? If he were an acquaintances of yours and he asks what you did that day, would you conveniently leave that out? I’m guessing you would. For the same reason McGwire didn’t mention steroids.
@Andy
“How do you determine who took performance enhancers?”
That’s the problem. Furthermore, if they decide to take the Mitchell Report as gospel, how do you decide if and when? This thing is crazy. McGwire was never determined to use PEDs, he’s just been suspected. If McGwire is to be kept out because of the Canseco accusation, what does this say about Schilling and A-Rod? I don’t think either of these guys are users, but it doesn’t matter what I think. The same thing that is placing a red flag on McGwire’s name, with a major assist from the Congressional hearings, is keeping him out. Is a simple whisper enough to disqualify someone? I need answers.
“Basing their location is McCarthyism.”
Your right, but is it worst to be placed in a corner somewhere, along with other players from your era, than to not get in at all because of these suspecisions? What if someone is suspected, and he’s innocent? Maybe you place everyone from 1990-2007 all in one spot, I don’t know. I don’t have the answers. I’ve been thinking about a solution to this for days, and there just isn’t one. Either you let them in, or you keep them out all together. Neither option is 100% fair. This is why I brought up Bonds and Clemens and their previous accomplishments prior to cheating, or allegedly cheating. They were HOFers before this, is it possible to put Bonds in from his rookie year to 2000? Can this happen? Do we put Clemens in and omit the sporadic years he used? If there is a roid-wing, and someone gets busted later on, then yes move him.
“Lastly I disagree with you saying McGwire did nothing wrong”
Your right, he did do somethign wrong, and as you point out this is why he took the fifth. What I was saying was that he was within the parameters of the rules. Also, like I said, this is more than enough to blackball him, if he was using roids. The Congressional hearings didn’t help his case, but at the same time, nothing has been proven. Does reasonable doubt exist? Absolutely. Would that be enough to sentence him to jail if he were on trial? Probably not. But, this isn’t the court of law, it’s one of public opinion, and it’s usually harder to get exonerated in the latter. The fact of the matter is, McGwire could have had been getting injections between pitches from the first base coach and he would have been within the parameters of the rules. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it’s true, baseball really failed in this aspect. This whole things should have been taken care of in 1994. LIke I said, you are 100% right. McGwire knew he was wrong if he was taking steroids, and his situation is awfully shady. A simple denial statement afterwards, any type of excuse would ease the blow, but still he is hiding. I don’t get it.
At the end of the day I just want some type of closure. The fact of the matter is, we still will know nothing after January 31. In my eyes if they let Mark in, then I know how these things will be handled in the future. But, chances are he will be left out again. More likely than not, it will be a case by case basis. It’s just that everything in the game is so uncertain right now, we need the healing process to begin again. For me it would mean less steroid talk, less scandal, less issues. For others it would be a travesty to let a suspected steroid user in that ‘decieved’ the nation. That’s why I think the ‘roid-wing’ would be the happy medium, there in, but not all the way in. The needles wouldn’t be infecting those that were of purer times.
Here is my view on the so-called “steroid era” of baseball. You can’t keep someone out of the hall who absolutely “has” to be remembered. Pete Rose is worthy of a mention here… he did something wrong, but who cares, he was one of the greatest ever. Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens should all be in the hall. There is absolutely no way that we can keep out some of todays greatest players. And if their accomplishments are indeed tarnished… who’s to say that there aren’t other tarnished achievements in the hall that we just don’t know about?
Ty Cobb was one of the biggest jerks of all time… did that keep him out of the hall?
How about some of the old Yankees (or players in general) with severe alcohol problems? What about drug addicts that were on drugs that aren’t performance enhancing - i.e. Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden? By the way, that last reference wasn’t saying that I deem either of them to be hall-worthy. Just an example.
Here is the easy solution to the problem. If you are a real fan, you’ll always remember the downfalls of these players. But it never stopped you from watching to see what they COULD achieve. I hate Barry Bonds, but was I watching every game as he neared the record? You bet! As a sports fan we watch because we want to be able to say that “we saw that” - or “I watched one of the greats”.
Let them all into the hall of fame (if deemed worthy). It’s not like we won’t remember their downfalls. It’s a pretty easy fix. Let them in, everyone will remember that this age was the “steroid era” much like everyone knows that players actually were screwed out of offensive stats during the “dead ball era”. Baseball has it’s phases, let’s just remember what the greats have done.
It’s tough Bryan. I agree with you, each of the players from this generation would have some type of symbol, or not, letting everyone know that they were from the Steroid Era. If we knew of everyone that used steroids, then by default people like Ceasar Izturis would be getting in, because there would be no one left. These guys should not be forgotten.
I think it’s all dependent on your era. People from our generation seem to be more forgiving on this issue, while those from the ‘old school’ would lose sleep knowing that Mark McGwire’s monument would be standing next to their hero’s. If it were up to us, Pete Rose would be in too, it’s just a tough issue. It’s about finding that medium, and I’m just not sure it exists.
I think you just leave it to the writer’s discretion and we live with their decisions. There are people today who think, for example, that Phil Rizzuto should not have been allowed in, even by the veteran’s committee. Some thought that Koufax’s induction was a stretch because of his short career.
You can’t quantify or finesse the steroid numbers enough to sort out the clean from dirty output. The writers have it easy when it comes to a guy like McGwire, because he was a one-dimensional player. But they’ll have tougher decisions to make when it comes to Bonds and Clemens. The other factor that will also come into play is whether either of these guys gets convicted of perjury. Bonds may be convicted; the way Clemens is going, he may end up prosecuted by the feds as well.
Regarding Clemens, I though he had 3 Cy Youngs before he started juicing, not five. In either case, if you told me a guy won three Cy Youngs my instinct would be he should be in the Hall and remembered as a great pitcher, but maybe not as an immortal, if he did indeed prolong his career to 300+ wins.
I still feel the guy is lying. His latest explanation, that McNamee injected him with lidocaine and B-12, already has holes. Lidocaine is used in specific locations to numb areas and relieve pain, not as a treatment for joint plain as Clemens claimed.
Also, as far as I can tell, McNamee had no motive to lie about Clemens. He has no vendetta against him; if anything, the guy still idolizes Clemens and feels bad that he ratted on him (just notbad enough to go to jail for him). The feds were not trying to get the goods on any one player and where shocked when McNamee mentioned Clemens. McNamee has a weak character, and I feel Clemens’ tactics are meant to intimidate McNamee into weakening his testimony. On that taped phone call, Clemens was looking for McNamee to say anything that would contradict or weaken his statements to the feds. If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a relationship where you’re being accused of all kinds of wrong doing, there comes a time where you eventually cave in just to stop the madness and say something like: “OK. I am the biggest a-hole in the world. I did everything you said for the reasons you say so. There. Now can I leave and really cheat on you?” I think Clemens was trying to get McNamee to succumb this way.
So, to sum up, let the writers use their best judgment, their imperfect subjective opinons, and their biased motivations, and let’s move on. The rest of us can then argue over a few beers in a bar over why someone should or should not have been let in.
He did win 3 before hand, but according to McNamee’s testimony, He had to Cy Young Years in which he wasn’t using while they were together
Leave a Comment