Tuesday, November 28, 2006

"Hall of Shame?"

A huge dilemma is brewing in Major League Baseball. And in the coming months, analysts, past players, and fans will try to make it more complicated than it is. They'll say this about one player and this about another.

When in reality all they should say about all of the players is either "yes" or "no."

Yes, beginning in 2007, members of the Steroids Generation in baseball are eligible for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. It was announced Monday that Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco - Canseco admitted to steroid use then wrote a book accusing others; McGwire repeatedly refuses to discuss the past despite rather clear evidence of steroid use, although what he took was legal at the time - are on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time.

And I'm sure others who have played under the dark cloud of the Steroid Era will make the ballot in the years to come. Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro, to name a few.

We will likely never know for sure if these players took 'roids (although we can be damn close to positive about Palmeiro after his failed drug test and Bonds, the way he has gotten better and bigger with age). The chance of any of these very proud ex-sluggers admitting to using an illegal substance is close to none.

The best thing voters can do is to either say, "I'm going to consider all of them," or, "I'm going to dismiss all of them." There shouldn't be any reading between the lines here. Either vote for the Steroid Generation as you would for another group of players - based on what they did on the baseball field - or don't vote for any of them because they may have cheated to achieve what they did.

Saying things like: "What about what Bonds did before he was on steroids?" just muddies this debate and makes voters stay up way too late at night - it just ain't healthy. Because, for one, you can't really be sure exactly when Bonds started taking steroids. Yes, it is stated in "Game of Shadows," and I certainly would take the word of those two courageous "San Francisco Chronicle" journalists over Bonds' testimony, but again, nothing is ever exact.

And what about the other players? Not every steroid user got a book written about him (in fact, one player had to write his own).

Of course, the difficult part will be weeding out the players who we know positively didn't take steroids during the past 10 or so years. To do this, consider who was in their prime during the Steroid Era - the later 1990s and early part of this century. McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Palmeiro, Jason Giambi. Not Ken Griffey Jr., not Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. - both of whom are on the 2007 ballot and will almost certainly deservedly get in.

Any player who was at his peak during the steroid era and has been suspected of steroid use should not be elected. I know this system is flawed, but there really is no easy way to resolve this issue.

At least this way voters don't need to dissect how "suspected users" performed "before use," “during use” and "after use."

Because that’s just way too confusing. I get a migraine simply reading that sentence.

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