I used to think becoming an inductee for the Baseball Hall of Fame was one of the coolest things that can happen to a sportswriter.
Now it seems like a hideous duty. If they gave it to me I would return it.
It’s hard to think of a ballot that I would be happy or not unhappy with.
The main issue among several is what to do with the steroid era, when the use of performance-enhancing drugs was said to be so widespread that it was transforming gamers. A chemical transformation.
Since Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco were on the ballot in 2007, this debate has raged on and is to some extent holding the Hall of Famers hostage. Roger Clemens’ 10 years on the writer’s ballot are now over.
Bonds might be the greatest baseball player of all time; He’s certainly the best I’ve ever seen. Clemens won seven Cy Young Awards. Nobody else has won more than four.
Bonds and Clemens were on two-thirds of this year’s ballots. Three quarters make it. Ten years ago they each received about 30 percent.
Players were eligible to vote for authors for 15 years. It was changed to 10 during Bonds/Clemens’ 10 years, a change that, ahem, may or may not have been made with them in mind.
If they had five more years, would they have gotten in? Probably.
They could both still get in through a vote by one of the Hall’s era committees, although that’s by no means automatic.
So it’s entirely possible that the Hall could do without the game’s best pitcher and hitter, the career home run and career hit leader.
At what point does the Hall of Fame suffer as a museum?
It is not unreasonable to say that Bonds and Clemens cheated, and that cheating is a real and destructive thing.
We’ve all heard a million times that Bonds/Clemens would have become “a Hall of Famer” without PEDs.
That’s true, but without PEDs, it’s possible that no one would find the Hall of Famer belittled by their absence.
In Clemens’ final four years at Boston, aged 30-33, he went 40-39 with ERAs of 4.46, 2.85, 4.18, and 3.63.
He then went to Toronto and promptly went 34-21-7 with a 2.05 and led the AL in innings pitched. He followed with 20-6, a 2.65 and 232 innings and played for nine more years until he was 44.
In about Bond’s first decade with the majors, he was a five-tool guy who was headed for a career similar to his father, Bobby Bonds, except he was about 25 percent better. Think of Frank Robinson.
Then, around that magical year of 1998, he began morphing into Babe Ruth in terms of physiology and performance.
He hit 209 home runs from age 36–39 and led the NL in on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS in all four seasons.
If you think Bonds used PEDs to transform his body, then you have to think that without PEDs he wouldn’t quite be on the level of Ruth, Aaron, Mays, Mantle.
But where do you draw the line? Tom House, the ex-big league pitcher, pitching coach and father of modern pitching mechanics, believes steroid use has declined since its use in the 1970s.
So can we even define the steroid era? Even if we define it as it’s commonly defined, roughly from 1998 to 2007, does that taint anyone whose career spanned that time or even touched the boundaries on either side?
Gregor Maddux? Roy Halladay? Toni Gwynn? Cal Ripken?
No, but why not?
Pooh.
It’s not like that argument is going away – A-Rod is now eligible. So does Manny Ramirez. Big Daddy got in easily on the first ballot, and you hope, for the sake of sportswriters’ integrity, that’s not because he’s such a nice guy.
(Remember the only unanimous Hall of Famer is Mariano Rivera, a gentleman’s gentleman.)
On the other hand, people seemed to love Sammy Sosa, and he’s clearly not coming in despite 609 career homers.
For what it’s worth, I agree with the Sosa verdict. As clearly as it can be said of anyone, they wouldn’t have been a great player without the juice.
So what if I had a voice?
Sosa is a hard no, but I’d probably hold my nose and vote for Bonds and Clemens.
And then I would take a quick shower.
