Keith Strudler: PEDs And The Baseball Hall Of Fame

I’m not a Hall of Fame guy. This isn’t just for baseball, but really for any sport. I’ve been to Canton, Ohio, and drove right past the Football Hall of Fame. I’ve been through Springfield and never thought about basketball. I don’t even know where hockey’s building is, much less the long list of secondary and college sports that maintain their own cathedrals.

Now, in all fairness, I’m not a huge museum guy either. I do enjoy the squid and the whale, and I’m fascinated by the T-Rex fossils. But as an aggregate, I can move pretty quickly through your average gallery of historical artifacts. I don’t know if that makes me dense or simply impatient, but it does free up lots of my vacation time for lounging in cafes.

Of course, that mindset isn’t so evident amongst diehard baseball fans. And it’s certainly not privileged amongst the 500 plus baseball writers who pick the elite few to enter their sport’s Hall of Fame each year. And if you don’t believe me, just remember back to last year, when baseball writer and sports talk host Dan LeBatard lost his vote and membership to the Baseball Writers’ Association of America for turning his last year’s ballot over to the satirical publication Deadspin and its readership. To baseball writers, this thing is a serious as a heart attack.

This year four former players made the cut, which means they got 75% of the possible vote. Three of the selections were apparent locks, as much as anyone outside Babe Ruth could ever be. That includes Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz. Also making the cut with 81% is former Astros second baseman Craig Biggio, who last year missed the cut by .2%. The list grew infinitely more interesting beyond the top three, particularly those that finished 9^th and 10^th in this year’s voting, Roger Clements and Barry Bonds. Both hovered around 37% in their third year on the ballot and would essentially need to double their vote total in the next seven years, when they both would be removed from the ballot. Also on the outside are Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, and Biggio’s teammate Jeff Bagwell. None of them appear to have reasonable chances to make the Hall anytime soon – or ever really. And, without overstating the obvious, their common tie is that they all stand as poster children for the baseball steroid era, where good athletes got great, and great ones became immortal. Some, like Clements, have faced ugly legal battles in defending their position if not their name, which is pretty much damaged beyond repair. So for all the great production from these aforementioned baseball stars, it’s entirely possible that none of them will be enshrined in baseball’s museum of excellence.

Baseball writers have either been given, or taken amongst themselves the job of Hall of Fame Police. Some might suggest they’re also judge, jury, and executioner. For all the talk of PED’s, there’s hardly a smoking gun to speak of, adding considerable meaning to the phrase “reasonable doubt.” It’s a potential problem for former Mets catcher Mike Piazza, who didn’t get in this year despite remarkable production, potentially because he was a member of the infamous steroid era, and some might suggest a likely participant of that period’s pastime. So really, now and for the next several years, baseball writers won’t simply decide whether a former athlete was good enough for the Hall of Fame, but also whether they were clean enough as well. That’s a heady charge for a group that’s lacks both medical and legal training.

I can’t say there’s a right way to do this. On the one hand, it’s obvious that many people have gotten by the writers moral policing on the way to Cooperstown. There are doubtlessly many athletes who doped, lied, stole, and all that, but never got caught nor particularly suspected. And there will probably be at least one or two who were punished unfairly for something they didn’t do, or even something that everyone did, casualties of war as they say. The Hall of Fame will be no more perfect than Congress, or any other body that’s chosen through inefficient means by a misled voting bloc. There is no right or wrong as to whether Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame, despite everyone’s need to defend one side or another. That’s the problem with the Hall of Fame – it’s round peg/square hole at best, firmly delineating excellence where lines have long been replaced a slippery slope. It’s one I’d rather not fall down. Which is why, among other reasons, I’m not really a Hall of Fame guy.

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