GOT IT RIGHT — The Weekly Opine

Sportswriters kept baseball’s steroids poster boys out of the Hall of Fame. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

The envelope please…

Last week, results of the recent vote by the Baseball Writers Association of America were announced. We learned the BWAA tally keeps steroids users Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds out of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In some quarters, the BWAA conclusion has been met with outrage. (Boston Red Sox great David Ortiz was voted into the Hall despite New York Times reporting that, in 2003, Ortiz tested positive for steroid use. Throughout his career, Ortiz managed to avoid the scrutiny that hounded others so maybe he was clean.)

Last week’s sportswriter’s ballot was the 10th and final chance for Clemens, Sosa, and Bonds to enter the Hall via the BWAA vote. Now, their only hope is for baseball’s Era Committee to vote them in next December. Don’t hold your breath.

Consequences of cheating

If you’ve ever listened to country music you know that cheating on your lover brings bad consequences. Apparently, there are bad consequences for cheaters when it comes to baseball, relative to gaining admission to the Hall of Fame. (Although not so much if you cheat and win the World Series like the Houston Astros did in 2017.)

Everybody gets a trophy should not apply if you cheat. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

From my perch, the BWAA mostly got it right, just as they did when they denied Mark McGwire entry into the Hall of Fame.

Testifying in front of a House Government Reform Committee in 2008, McGwire famously and repeatedly said, “I’m not going to go into my past and talk about my past.” When pressed by congressmen about using steroids during his career, McGwire said, “I’m not here to talk about the past.” He might as well have plead the 5th, under the premise of not committing self-incrimination. And McGwire may as well have admitted to using steroids, which everyone knows he did.

The highest vote percentage Mark McGwire received from the BWAA was 24% and he reached just 12% in his 10th and final year on the ballot, in 2016.

What’s interesting now is that Bonds and Clemens received, respectively, 66% and 65% of the BWAA vote in their 10th and final chance. What does that tell us about sportswriter’s mindset? As newer generations of journalists, bred in the everybody-gets-a-trophy era, cast their votes will cheaters make it into the Hall?

Pardon my interruption

ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” is a primary reason I still subscribe to the total sports network. Much of the other programming on ESPN favors a young, hip crowd and appeals more to the data savvy generations. Nowadays, many fans my age do not have the inclination to invest as much time in ESPN, other than live sports, which the network still produces at a compelling level.

Chicago White Sox star Frank Thomas easily made it to the Hall of Fame, sans steroid use. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

“Pardon the Interruption,” hosted by 63-year-old Michael Wilbon and 73-year-old Tony Kornheiser, grabs my attention because Kornheiser and Wilbon bring seasoned sensibility to their discussions. And they loathe sports’ overreliance on analytics which makes Wilbon and Kornheiser identifiable. I like that PTI is devoid of mini-skirted eye-candy, which is not to throw shade at mini-skirts – particularly since most of ESPN’s young women sports talkers understand sports.

PTI harkens back to sports shows like SportsChannel’s “The Sportswriters on TV” that featured a group of estimable local Chicago newspaper columnists, sitting in a cigar smoke-filled room, passionately discussing sports stories of the day.

So, I was deeply disappointed when Wilbon and Kornheiser vehemently argued that Clemens, Bonds and Sosa should be in baseball’s Hall of Fame, even if it means setting up a separate wing at the Hall for players from the steroid era. Uh, no way fellas.

Baseball’s steroid using cheaters should no more be in the Hall of Fame than Trump should be president if he’d been successful stealing the 2020 election.

Consider what the career statistics put up by Chicago White Sox Hall of Famer, Frank Thomas, would have been if aided by steroids. Nicknamed “the Big Hurt,” Thomas was known for having a great eye for the strike zone along with slugging homers. Had he decided to cheat using steroids, there is no question Thomas, who finished his career with 521 homers, would be in the exclusive club of players who hit 600 round-trippers. And it’s conceivable “the Big Hurt” would have hit 70 homers in a season.

Hear no, see no

It’s also interesting that former baseball commissioner Bud Selig, who oversaw baseball’s steroids era, is in the Hall of Fame. Ditto current Chicago White Sox manager Tony LaRussa. It can confidently be stated that both men condoned what was happening, as some players juiced up to gain advantage, or to remain competitive against contemporaries who were already cheating.

Many fans turned away from baseball after the 1994 labor dispute cut the season short. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

You’ll never convince me that LaRussa, when he managed the Oakland Athletics, knew nothing of the performance-enhancing exploits of the “Bash Brothers,” Mark McGwire and Jose Conseco. When he became manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, LaRussa surely knew sumptin’ was up with McGwire, considering the raised eyebrows swirling around the big man, going back to their time together in Oakland.

Selig, who can come off as a Midwestern Huckleberry, knew that baseball’s popularity was quickly eroding in the mid-1990s. Due to management vs. labor strife, baseball’s relationship with fans was at a crossroads. Following the strike-shortened 1994 season, which cancelled the World Series, many sports fans lost interest in baseball.

An injection (no pun intended) of excitement was sorely needed and the homerun spectacle featuring the Cardinals’ McGwire and Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa was the electric current America’s pastime needed to become relevant again. The summer of 1998 was storybook, as the two rivals chased down and surpassed one of sports’ most revered records.

In 1961, New York Yankee Roger Maris set a single season record hitting 61 homeruns. McGwire finished the 1998 season with 70 dingers, while Sosa hit 66. Three years later, Barry Bonds would eclipse McGwire with 73 homers. Bonds’ 762 career homers supposedly broke Hank Aaron’s record of 755 homeruns.

I say “supposedly” because, for my money, Roger Maris’ 61 and Hank Aaron’s 755 are still the records. Neither Maris nor Aaron cheated to achieve their numbers. So, it’s quite straightforward. You cheat, you are not in the record book, and you do not enter the Hall of Fame.

David Ortiz going into the Hall of Fame gives me pause. Clearly, his standing as one of the game’s most popular players paved the way. Given the rejection of steroid boys McGwire, Clemens, Sosa, and Bonds by the BWAA, it makes no sense to welcome Ortiz to the exclusive club, if what the New York Times reported in 2003 is accurate. We may never know.

The great Cincinnati Reds player, Pete Rose, was rightfully banned from baseball for life for betting on games and will never enter the Hall of Fame. Nor should anyone be allowed into the Hall who was caught cheating using banned performance-enhancing drugs.

It’s worth repeating. You cheat, you are not in the record book, and you do not enter the Hall of Fame.