Fans were eager to learn the position of the Committee for the Contemporary Era of Baseball regarding the eligibility of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro for the Hall of Fame. The response was sharp. Each of the three former glories of the diamond received only four votes or less out of a possible 16.
We are therefore talking about only 25% of the votes, while the percentage required to be elected is 75% (12 votes out of 16).
Bonds, Clemens and Palmeiro will continue to pay for a long time, even the rest of their lives, for having used banned doping products. It was perhaps their last chance to enter the pantheon.
Bonds’ candidacy will be considered again in 2025. But if we trust what is written and said everywhere in the United States, he is likely to be ignored once again.
13 baseball heads on the panel
The six former players on the committee, formerly known as the Veterans Committee, are generally all members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
This year, we found Greg Maddux, Jack Morris, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Frank Thomas and Alan Trammell, who all played at the same time as Bonds, Clemens and Palmeiro.
The committee also included seven former or current managers in the major leagues, the best known being Paul Beeston, former president of the Toronto Blue Jays; Theo Epstein, architect of the 2004 and 2007 Boston Red Sox and 2016 Chicago Cubs; and Kim Ng, general manager of the Miami Marlins.
The panel was rounded out by a baseball historian and two reporters who have followed MLB activities for decades.
The result of the vote was well received by a large majority of people in the baseball world.
Money, always money!
The cases of Bonds and Clemens are particularly troubling. They already had their ticket to Cooperstown before falling into the magic potion.
If they claim to be the victims of a smear campaign, they have only themselves to blame.
It’s true that baseball turned a blind eye when steroids roamed the locker room.
The race for the most home runs in a season between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa allowed MLB to recover thousands of fans who had deserted the stadiums after the damned players’ strike in 1994.
McGwire and Sosa have seen their salaries swell at the same rate as their arms.
This dark chapter in baseball history did not prevent then-commissioner Bud Selig from being elected to the temple.
All that was missing was the baseball monks opening the doors of Cooperstown to Donald Fehr, who was the general manager of the Players Association.
We are talking about the same man who is waiting to know the identity of his successor in the National Hockey League Players Association to enjoy a golden retirement.
Rose is cooked too
These two characters are no more deserving than Pete Rose, who lately implored current commissioner Rob Manfred to lift the lifetime suspension for gambling that Bart Giamatti imposed on him in 1989.
Rose knew what he was exposing himself to. The ban on wagering for players and coaches is a fundamental rule in all sports.
Baseball’s first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, did neither one nor two in the wake of the Chicago White Sox scandal.
Despite a court verdict of not guilty, the eight White Sox players suspected of receiving money to rig the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in 1919 were banned for life by Landis.
Sport must take steps to discourage this kind of thing.
