An Editorial Which Will Have Baseball Historians Steaming

You know, many years ago, before I found out about Mayer vs. Belichick, New England Patriots, and the National Football League, I actually proposed suing Major League Baseball for allowing and encouraging the rampant steroid use.

Of course, I was almost laughed off of rec.sport.baseball, for the reason the court eventually gave in the above case.

Well, while researching for USA Today's usual weekly NFL fine article (which usually fills in the blanks of a lot of the smaller/lower-profile events of the week), I found something which I already know has my Hall-of-Fame-watching baseball.historian steaming almost this time of every year.

Ted Berg of USA Today has not only proposed four reasons that the roidie cheats should be in the Hall of Fame, but, also, that the character clause in voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame should be outright eliminated.

Now, assuredly, there are people in the Baseball Hall of Fame who are quite of ill character, too numerous to list here...

But to say that the steroid cheats are so vital to baseball's history that not only should they be in Cooperstown, but the entire concept of the honorable nature of character be stricken from the voting process is beyond ludicrous -- it basically sacrifices the final traditions on which baseball WAS (and no longer IS) America's National Pastime.

So let's hear out, and then destroy the argument of, Mr. Berg...

"But for the angry fans certain that Cooperstown has no room for cheaters — those fans this post aims to convince otherwise — please at least dial back the outrage for a moment and consider the justification, understanding that no one is arguing that baseball players should take steroids or that being caught taking steroids in 2014 does not merit punishment."

But let's ignore the entire tradition of a steroid-ladened farce for much of the post-strike 1990's and most of the 2000's.  Let's just ignore that reality, which, if exposed, might well have ENDED baseball.

First Reason:  Ending the Witch Hunt

Basically, that you cannot have a reasoned discussion of who is Hall of Fame and who is not, especially from the Steroid Era, without "moral judgements, finger-pointing, and baseless speculation".

The biggest problem, to me, of letting anybody at all (clean or otherwise) from the Steroid Era is the game being so tainted, it's not baseball anymore.  Hence, can historical benchmarks be used for players in this era?

That problem has already cost Craig Biggio (one of the few players basically universally recognized as steroid-free who might well be headed the Hall eventually from this era) one year and probably (with the Atlanta pitchers and Mr. Anabolic Cheeseburgers Frank Thomas) a second.

The thing is, the best one can do is try to separate the players clearly on the gas (the McGwires, Sosas, Palmeiros, Bondses, Clemens', et. al.) from the player with the only anabolic substance they took was that of pizza or cheeseburger (Thomas, et. al.), or players who didn't look the part (Biggio, et. al.).

The problem with Berg's argument here is that he is guilty in one direction of the same crime I can be accused and called guilty of in the other:  Berg's argument is that you don't want to have to make the decision, so put them all in.

Until I talked to said baseball historian friend, my position was completely set at what I wrote to the BBWAA when the roidies began their march to the ballot:  Let no one in, because you have no baselines.

The one argument that could be made by Berg here is:

"But then, there’s almost no doubt some players who were never caught cheating did indeed cheat. And if one of those guys earns a plaque, it hardly seems fair to deny the honor to players who confessed their guilt. Without comprehensive evidence to determine who used and who didn’t, trying to distinguish for the sake of Hall of Fame voting ultimately amounts to electing guys based on their public-relations skills."

... effectively the argument that there is already a roidie cheat in the Hall or there soon will be.  (Mike Piazza is a common name to come up in that regard.)

There is, however, another problem with the argument Berg makes:  We already have guys being elected (or denied!) on PR skills.  That's been happening as long as the BBWAA has been part of the process, and the only way to stop THAT is to end the BBWAA's involvement.

The problem is that not only does the "witch hunt" need to continue, but there does need to be a process in place that a roidie cheat (or similar) can be removed upon discovery.  The problem would be, though, the innumerable list of players (from Ty Cobb on down) you could remove on similar charges of the Character Clause.

Second Reason:  Saving the Hall of Fame

How about we save baseball, Mr. Berg?

How about we recognize that the roidie cheats and the Commissioner who all but peddled to them have turned the Former National Pastime into a Balkanized mess of Yankees-Red Sox every damn Sunday night on ESPN, in which no one watches the World Series unless their team is involved?

And saving the Hall of Fame from WHAT?  Having a 20-year gap, a 20-year period that was "Not Baseball"?

"The Hall of Fame is our greatest shrine to our best thing. As fans who grew up loving the game in the late 1990s and early 2000s mature and start families, how many will rush to bring their kids to see a Hall of Fame that excludes their own childhood heroes?"

How about recognizing that those "men" being the childhood heroes is one of the reasons we have a culture today without morals, without any real boundaries to conduct (Knockout Game, the entirety of Football Nation America, 600 people brawling in a movie parking lot because they couldn't break in on Christmas Day), and without any real future at all?

Our culture mirrors what has happened in sports over the last 20-30 years.

Their "own childhood heroes" did not play baseball.  They did something else.  They did something criminal.  Each and every last one of them should be doing time in a federal prison.

They have no place in Cooperstown -- the game they created by their syringes and other bullshit was NOT BASEBALL.

"People sometimes ask, “How am I supposed to explain to my kid that Barry Bonds made the Hall of Fame even though he took steroids?” But that actually takes, like, 20 seconds: “The Hall of Fame honors great players, son, not great men. Barry Bonds might have been a jerk, and he was willing to break the law to be better at baseball. But man, could that guy hit.”"

Fuck that.  Fuck all of it, and I lived in San Francisco during the height of the Bonds years.  That guy couldn't hit without the steroids.  His entire place in the game for how many years was completely tied to BALCO?   He was always good for sitting out the day game after a night game as it was.

So the "could that guy hit" baloney was completely due to the steroids and dealing with the effects.

Third reason:  Recognizing Humanity

Here comes the "We all make mistakes" card.

"We all screw up all the time, and Hall of Famers are no different. Hall of Fame owner Tom Yawkey worked to keep baseball segregated. Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry admitted to doctoring baseballs. Hall of Fame outfielder Ty Cobb once climbed into the stands to beat up a man with no hands. Too many Hall of Famers to bother listing have admitted to using now-banned “greenies” — amphetamines — to endure baseball’s long seasons."

You know, the real answer would be to allow the BBWAA to enforce the Character Clause and throw out Cobb, Perry, Yawkey, et. al. if it merited.

Maybe the HoF needs that debate FIRST, before we play the "we all screw up, so let's let in the cheats so they get more of what they don't deserve".

Berg:

"And unless someone plans to purge them all from the museum and recraft it as some squeaky-clean place honoring only Lou Gehrig and Derek Jeter, then it doesn’t really seem fair to exclude contemporary players on behalf of morality."

I'll be more than happy to have that debate long before I let Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, etc. in.

Fourth Reason:  Celebrating Great Players

This is ludicrous on it's face.

First, the game they played, due to their drugged conduct, WAS NOT BASEBALL.

Second, that's the very same argument Football Nation America makes to justify criminal thugs like Dashon Goldson, Ndamukong Suh, and all the blood-letters out there.

If a "Great Player" is result-oriented only, then the ends justify ALL means.

"Does everyone forget how many guys took steroids and stunk? More than half of the guys listed in the infamous Mitchell Report were total scrubs. Even if some of the guys you’re trying to keep out now did use PEDs, they used them to compete and succeed against a bunch of other guys who were also taking PEDs because they played at a time when no one did anything to stop them."

They were major-leaguers because of steroids.  They just didn't have the careers that Jose Canseco had, even with his admission that he was the same.  In this realm, they and Canseco were no different.  In this realm, only the results were different.

The problem is, Berg then uses that to extrapolate to his argument.

"All 762 of Barry Bonds’ home runs still count in the box scores, just as we still celebrate the teams that won championships behind players who have since admitted to using PEDs."

That, to me, should be changed.  There, in MY opinion, should be a 20 or so-year black hole in the history of sports where baseball would stand.

Otherwise, you get what we now have in Football Nation America:  Drugs, rape, murder, doesn't matter -- he needs to be on that fucking field on Sunday!!!  BLARGH!!!!

So, in your mind, the end justified any means to get there.

I would be the murderer/rapist everyone thought I would be if I had (or was ever taught by those I should believe) that same attitude.

"Including a character clause in the voting criteria puts many baseball writers in the impossible position of retroactively policing men they never knew for taking actions no one tried to stop. It’s time to take morality out of the picture and put great baseball players in the Hall of Fame."

They weren't baseball players.  Realistically, one has to question even the legitimate players because of the actions no one tried to stop.  You're a fool for not seeing that, Mr. Berg.