Baseball Immortality and Infamy
It is the time of year that we think of who will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. It is also the time of year when we start thinking of the nominees who are not considered worthy of the Hall. I have always been a fan of Mark McGwire and believe that he should be voted into the Hall. However, as my cousin very rightly reminds me, that opens the door for others like Sammy Sosa when he reaches his eligibility in a few years. I guess that would also open the door up to Rafael Palmeiro who, we all can remember, pounded his fist and said very definitively that he did not use PEDs. Of course, we found out later that he did.
If you look at the all time homerun leader list you will see that nine of the top 20 are not in the HOF. Those nine are comprised of McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, Bonds, Thomas, Thome, Ramirez, A-Rod, and Griffey Jr. Aside from McGwire, the rest are either still playing or have not reached their eligibility year yet. Another commonality is that each of these players has over 500 homeruns.
Ignoring performance enhancing drugs, I don’t think that there is anyone who would deny entry into the Hall of Fame to any of these nine players. However, we know that at least six of these guys in all likelihood have used steroids. I don’t think that I have heard any link of steroids to Frank Thomas and Jim Thome and I am pretty darn certain that Junior has never touched the stuff. Does that mean that the rest don’t make it to enshrinement? Does that mean that the Hall will be missing players like Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez? If Big Mac doesn’t make it in then I don’t see how the rest will be voted in.
Besides Big Mac’s alleged use of PEDs, people will point to his batting average as an excuse not to let him in. People will do the same with Sosa. Those people should take a look at Hall of Famers like Reggie Jackson and Harmon Killebrew.
We can all be reasonably, if not totally, sure that Big Mac, Slammin’ Sammy, Palmeiro, Bonds, A-Rod, and Manny have at the very least dabbled in PEDs. The question is: will this prevent the all-time homerun leader from getting enshrined? One day A-Rod will probably break Bonds’s record. Will this mean that the two top homerun hitters ever will be excluded from the Hall of Fame?
Everyone knows that steroids are bad. Everybody knows that a large percentage of baseball players have used. However, the players in question (aside from Manny, who actually got suspended) didn’t break any laws or even any rules of the game. All of the positive tests and accusations have taken place before there was a ban or any punishments put in place. Instead of pointing fingers and placing blame, we should accept that this is an indictment on baseball in general.
I say’ “LET BIG MAC IN WITH HIS 583 DONGS. LET SLAMMIN’ SAMMY SAY AN ACCEPTANCE SPEECH IN SPANISH JUST IN CASE HE FORGETS HOW TO SPEAK ENGLISH AGAIN. LET OUR ALL-TIME HOMERUN LEADERS HAVE THEIR DAY IN THE SUN.” These are the guys that I grew up with. I will always remember the race between McGwire and Sosa and all of the excitement that surrounded it. Nobody can say that these were not great ballplayers who dominated the major leagues for years. Let the Hall of Fame celebrate the greatest ballplayers of our game.
I LOVE BASEBALL.
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