A survey conducted by the Associated Press of Baseball Writers who have a Hall of Fame vote (and were willing to participate) show Barry Bonds at 45 percent, Roger Clemens at 43 percent and Sammy Sosa at 18 percent. Whether this is what their final tallies is yet to be determined, but the venom of which those who were quoted had against the PED era players has to be noted.
Washington Examiner columnist, Thom Loverro does not begrudge the statistical landmarks of the aforementioned three but stated that “three of the six criteria for election to Cooperstown are sportsmanship, integrity and character and that Bonds, Sosa and Clemens fail on all three counts”. Troy Renck of the Denver Post stated that he would “feel very uncomfortable voting for anyone that is a known cheater”. MLB.com’s Hal Bodley said his passion for the game could never allow known cheaters to the Hall.
Allow me to get on my soap box here…..
I am sick to death of these writers talking about the game’s integrity when most of them had their heads up their ass during the PED era and voted for these same players to win Cy Youngs and MVPs when it was clear that inflated numbers were not just a product of a juiced ball. (Look up how many articles were written during that time painting that and expansion for the reason of inflated numbers) I will say again that Major League Baseball collectively looked the other way ignoring what would be a problem for the sake of selling tickets after the debacle of the 1994 strike. For that matter so did the fans, and so did many of these same writers.
Once the inflated head (literally) of Barry Bonds shattered records and turned into a playstation batter, did many start to care. Was it because he was an unlikable black man who had zero media savvy (nor wanted to)? Maybe. History shows that his accomplishments were the turning point of public opinion, and not Brady Anderson and his douchbaggery sideburns and his unlikely 50 home runs that happened a few years earlier. (Many articles praising Anderson for packing extra muscle and retooling his swing exist too).
Here is what else I know. Baseball players have ALWAYS searched for an edge. Be it the spitball (which got Gaylord Perry inducted, and the title of his autobiography was “Me and the Spitter”), corked bats or greenies, the subtleties of cheating have been part of the game. It doesn’t make it right, but how is one level of cheating better than the other? Oh….because Congress did not spend millions trying to figure out if Perry really did use the Spitball.
Ok…that wasn’t fair, as Steroids are only legal with a prescription, of which I don’t recall any ballplayer having one. Still, Baseball did not ban anabolic steroids until 2002 and it was not until 2005, that the caught use of it resulted in suspension. So, if Baseball had no set policy against it (realistically until 2005), than is it right to punish those who did not break a rule in their sport? Apparently to many of these writers it is.
Off the soapbox now.
So what does this mean? Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa (who frankly may not be statistically relevant anyway) are not likely to get in. That and every year at this time we are going to have this same conversation.
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