I have long argued that baseball players
linked to performance-enhancing drugs should not be allowed into the Hall. My
position has not changed. But it will be tested for many of the baseball
writers now that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens will be on the ballot. There
will be some writers who will attempt to separate their supposedly clean years
when they started to build their Hall of Fame credentials from the latter years
of their careers when they were linked to steroids or human growth hormone.
That to me is a futile exercise so I have a hard-and-fast rule: if you cheated,
you’re out.
That rule has allowed me to draw an
unmovable line in the sand, even with players that I have had a great deal of
affection for in the past such as Andy Pettitte (whose apparent decision to
return for another year is great news for the New York Yankees). Pettitte, to
his credit, admitted that he cheated and will likely be kept out of the Hall,
even though his career postseason stats build a solid case for induction. I
suspect Pettitte will receive a respectable number of votes given his resume
and general likeability, but he will fall far short of the Hall of Fame, as he
should.
But Pettitte’s probable return means he
won’t even be on the ballot for five years after he decides to retire for good
so his candidacy can be debated in future years. The writers will face the more
immediate test on Bonds, Clemens and some of their contemporaries. There will
be a lot of outside pressure from those who believe that rejecting such
dominant players would make the Hall selection process a farce, but I hope the
writers stick to their guns and keep the drug cheats out.
Thanks to Keith Allison via Wikipedia for the Clemens photo.
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