PART THREE POINT ZERO:
I guess I can just start with the juicy gobs of over-publicized politics and work my way back to the fun stuff many readers may not already know. As I mentioned in the previous entry, I was going to discuss the Character Clause’s connection to the enshrine-able cheaters. This has become a very lively debate; kinda’ like the Rowe v. Wade of baseball.
However, even for a religious baseball fan and budding historian like myself, this isn’t a very interesting topic. For one, there are just too many questions flung all around, hanging from the wall of this debate. And no one has any real answers. Guess what, you aren’t gonna get any here either.
US News and World Reports Journalist Robert Schlesinger covered the issue in an editorial last summer. I climbed aboard with him, who was climbing aboard with a former ballplayer himself. He talked with Steve Lyons, former AL journeyman and TV analyst, amongst others. It was Lyons opinions I particularly enjoyed.
“My own view is closer to Lyons’. [Former major leaguer Steve Lyons] started by observing that the steroids scandal is a bore. An important bore that has put a black eye on the sport, to be sure, but a bore nevertheless…”
Ten years from now when we look back on the “Steroid Era,” I believe we’ll have to recognize the accomplishments of all the players that were proven users, suspected users, and all the other players that we weren’t sure of. How can we not?” [Schlesinger, Robert. US News and World Report. Editorial. Online. 2009 July 26]
How can you mark the history of a sport without including the members of an entire era in the games evolution? Eventually, the steroids will win. In all honestly, I wouldn’t mind seeing Bonds, Clemens, A-Rod and Palmiero go in as soon as they’re eligible.
The ballplayers from the 1880s-1947 are considered some of the best ever, even though they never faced a black pitcher. Pitchers from the late 1960s are considered some of the best ever even though they threw pitches from a higher plain than any other era.
Shouldn’t pitchers who struck out ‘roid-raging dopers or hitters who hit home runs off of hormone infused druggies be considered some of the best as well? …Even if they, themselves, didn’t have the cleanest blood? User versus user is as much, if not more, of a level playing field as the other situations.
I’m not saying that the dopers all deserve to be considered innocent, as heroic as Ted Williams and Bob Feller, or anything else; I’m simply saying they should be considered …eventually…
The Induct-a-‘Roid scandal/ debate started, in large part, in 2006 when the last entirely ‘clean’ voting class got their plaques. Let’s not even mention how the 2006 induction class was also made up of 17 names that were as much mysteries as they were the product of oral histories. I’ll get back to you on that idea…
In 2006 former relief pitcher Bruce Sutter was inducted to the Hall of Fame. Upon the day of the ceremony, many Hall of Famers and writers were interviewed about the fate of the Hall and future elections. The only things that were certain that day were that Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn were going to get in next year, and that the potential induction of Mark McGwire, who would also appear in the ballot for the first time in 2007, was going to begin an enormous controversy.
That year, the Washington Post printed an editorial in their Sunday edition noting some of the steroid-related opinions that were discussed at Induction Weekend in Cooperstown. Staff Writer Dave Sheinin collected the quotes for the Post.
“Everybody knows it’s coming,” said Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, a 1962 inductee. “Some people would be upset [if McGwire is elected]. I obviously wouldn’t like it. That would be very damaging to the Hall of Fame.” However, Feller, when asked about the lack of hard evidence against McGwire, said, “I know a bum when I see one.”
“Next year’s ballot will be a pretty good bellwether about how writers feel about this issue,” said Dale Petrosky, president of the Hall of Fame. “A lot of people believe we are going to know a lot more information [about steroids] in a few years. But until anything is proven, the baseball writers are going to have to look into their souls and ask, ‘Does this guy belong in the Hall or not?’ and, ‘How did he get there?’ “(That couldn’t be more true and perfectly explains the attitude that exists now- four years later.)
“I don’t recall Mark McGwire ever testing positive,” said Hall of Fame third baseman Wade Boggs (class of 2005). “In America, you’re not guilty until proven innocent — it’s the other way around.”
Boggs took a noble stance. It is likely the stance that I would have take so not to offend a potential member to the HOF fraternity. McGwire has never been anything but a gracious competitor throughout his career. If it wasn’t for steroids, few writers and players would have anything negative to say about the guy. Why was everyone picking on him so hard? Feller’s quote (above) was tough.
“I’d still come [to the induction ceremony], for sure. I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Bill Mazeroski (class of 2001) said. “Honestly, I still haven’t figured out exactly how I feel about [the steroids issue] — and I get the feeling you writers haven’t, either.”
(They still haven’t to this day… either – I still don’t even know how I feel about Mazeroski being in the HOF)
“I was very fond and respectful of Mark McGwire as a player,” said voter Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe. “But when he stood there in front of Congress and said, ‘I don’t want to talk about the past,’ it left me thinking, ‘Okay, Mark, then I don’t want to consider your past, either.’”
Rick Hummel, who covered McGwire for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch when McGwire played for the Cardinals, said he is “inclined to vote for him, based on what we know about him, and also what we don’t know” — meaning the lack of any firm evidence about McGwire, one way or another. (We do now!) “How do we know how many homers to subtract [from his totals]?” Hummel said. “He was always a home run hitter, even as a rookie.”
[Sheinin, David. Washington Post. Editorial. Online. 2006 July 30.]
Since that summer, the conversation has only grown. Very little new material has been introduced to the discussion, but more people have started taking part. New names have come out, some shocking, some not so much, but the conversation continues. I included those quotes because I found it fascinating that the same thing that is being said now was said at the beginning of the debate. The Mitchell Report had just been launched in March of 2006, but still not much has changed.
Admitted steroid users Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti were also on the 2007 ballot, but it is clear neither name brought about much opinion. (Caminiti had died of a drug-induced heart attack two years previous.)
Due to my extensive use of outside quotes, I am going to have move the other parts of my Character Clause conversation to corresponding columns. The concluding pieces of this post will be more historically-based and anecdotal discussions about gambling and other methods of cheating that were so much less significant, in the eyes of the Hall, that the offenders were enshrined without a second thought…
Since when is conspiring with mobsters and professional gamblers an insignificant offense? – It was for HOF Manager Leo Durocher.
