Tuesday was a day of contrast for baseball as it saw the induction of two of its most beloved stars, when writers elected Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. by overwhelming margins into the Hall of Fame.
Conversely, one of the game’s former saints, Mark McGwire, was vociferously rejected by the same individuals who helped place him on such a lofty pedestal. Baseball’s writers spoke loudly, as former Oakland A’s and St. Louis Cardinals slugger McGwire garnered a meager 23.5 percent of the vote, a far cry from the 75 percent needed for induction.
McGwire is best known for belting 583 home runs, including 70 in 1998, which was widely viewed as the season that helped save baseball.
Since his retirement in 2001, baseball and McGwire have suffered a fall from grace. The BALCO controversy and Jose Canseco’s tell-all book, “Juiced,” (in which McGwire’s former teammate alleges he personally injected McGwire) helped to prompt Congressional hearings on the impact of steroids on the game.
At the hearings, America saw the former icon crumble into an emotional mess and refuse to talk about the past, bringing into doubt that magical summer of 1998 and the slugger’s entire career.
McGwire happens to be the first of a myriad of great players from the mid-1980s to the present whose careers fall under what will eventually be known as baseball’s steroids era. If Tuesday is any indication, players like Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro may join the ranks of Joe Jackson and Pete Rose – great players who have no chance at Hall of Fame induction.
This sets a dangerous precedent. I’m well aware that the Hall of Fame is not a court of law, but there is a serious lack of evidence here. Steroid testing wasn’t even mandatory in baseball until 2003, after McGwire retired. In that first year, the tests were kept confidential.
It’s pretty scary when a former Surreal Life cast member is judge, jury and ultimately the executioner of your baseball legacy. Canseco said he was positive that Roger Clemens (and many others) used steroids with absolutely no first-hand knowledge. He also “estimated” that 75 percent of major league players use steroids.
Up to this point, the only great player who has tested positive is Palmeiro. Let us not forget that baseball as a whole – players, managers, owners, league officials, fans and writers – turned a blind eye for decades. Even when a reporter spied a bottle of Andro in McGwire’s locker in that record-setting 1998 season – it was the reporter who was vilified. Nobody wanted to believe it.
When Sosa nearly doubled his home-run total in the same year, nobody questioned it. The list goes on, littered with names like Brady Anderson, Luis Gonzales and the late Ken Caminiti. The fact is everyone involved in baseball is guilty, from the players on down.
There are too many questions involved with this era of baseball. What about the pitchers who used steroids during this era? Do we forget about them?
What about a player like Bonds? Bonds could have retired after the 1998 season (the year before he reportedly began using steroids) and likely would have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer with 400 home runs and countless stolen bases and three MVPs.
Should the writers vote for the 1986-1998 Bonds, or the post-1998 Bonds? Does one positive test ruin a player’s career like that of a gambling charge, a la Pete Rose? These are questions that need to be answered.
Do I think that the aforementioned players used steroids? Yes, at this point I do. Should their careers be forgotten? Absolutely not, they should be included in one of the most exciting and clouded eras in baseball history.
However, the last time I checked, the Hall of Fame is a monument to baseball history, not morality. Like all history, baseball has its bleak passages. Ask every Negro League player who was refused a shot at playing in the big leagues because of their skin color if baseball is all about good times.
Ask the writers who voted unanimously for Ty Cobb’s induction to the Hall if baseball has a dark side. Cobb was an overt racist who once attacked a disabled fan in the stands and more than likely bet on games with fellow Hall of Fame outfielder Tris Speaker.
What are the stipulations for induction, that writers think you used steroids? Does Canseco get a vote? I hope not. The fact is every era in baseball has skeletons in its closet, whether it is drugs, gambling, racism or steroids.
Baseball writers should get off their moral high horse and acknowledge this era of baseball, asterisks and all.