CHEYENNE, Wy. - Mark McGwire can get into the Hall of Fame any time he wants. He just has to get to Cooperstown, walk up to the ticket office and slap down $16.50 — or $14.75 if he's a AAA member. Because the only way he's getting in is as a visitor. While he has 12 more shots at being elected, his first three years of eligibility for election by the veteran members of the Baseball Writers Association of America have spoken loudly about the dark cloud that has shrouded McGwire's career because of his presumed use of performance-enhancing drugs, and his refusal to open up about the subject. We live in a forgiving society. But we need to have a reason to forgive. McGwire has refused to deal with the questions surrounding his home run hitting exploits. He finds himself remembered not as much for being the man who broke Roger Maris' single-season home run record of 61, set in 1961, by hitting 70 in 1998, as for his refusal to answer questions during his appearance before a House Government Reform Committee that was looking into the use of PEDs in baseball. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/9072976/No-room-in-Hall-of-Fame-for-McGwire?MSNHPHMA
the thing he claims he was on was legal at the time. then became legal a year later. edit: androstine is the name I believe......
Why because some guys used steroids when there wasn't a league rule or drug testing place at the time? Do you still watch football because guys still get caught doing it in that sport as well. Just look at Shawn Merriam, he used steroids, got caught, got suspended but yet still got to play in the pro bowl. Yet when a baseball player gets caught it's the end of the world.
How many records did Shawne break with his legal drug use? How many times has he been caught compared to Bonds, Mac, Sosa for this? Apples and Oranges.
Id say its pretty prevalent in all sports really............baseball just catches most of the heat because the records were being broken with it.
My point is though, the NFL polices this policy harshly, where MLB seems to not be up to date in the policing of what they want or dont want to be illegal, banned, etc.
the androstine thing was more the fda bro from what I remember. It was literally legal around the country, I know I took it till it turned illegal
yes if true. but i believe he said some things on the hill, which is why people think he was on some other stuff.
from what i've read, it's the things he hasn't said that is keeping him out. makes me think BBWAA is holding a grudge.
Its also because of baseballs history with problems self regulating. The Black sox Scandal, repeating it with Rose, theres a laundry list of things that baseball has endured. They get the most heat for it because they have been around the longest of any of the 4 major sports I believe and their resume of dirt is just much longer then the others. Eventually the other sports will build their own resumes. Hockey for example has quite a resume of crap its just that no one cares because only 3% of the US (or thereabouts) watches hockey. Good. As Lucky said, add Clemens to the list. Let it be a lesson. Id put Shoeless Joe Jackson in before any of those guys. Mac basically pleaded the 5th and said nothing which in his case because of the celebrity status it took on said about his guit then his innocence. He didnt even deny it. He just kind of accepted it and hoped it would go away. I have said from day one I dont want any of those guys in the HOF and my stance hasnt changed a bit.
If thats the case, most of MLB players from 1980 thru, what 2000, shouldn't be in the HOF. roids ran rampant for many years. not sure of the years.
But he never denied steroid use either. Its not the andro that got Big Mac a seat in congress. Its the fact he was asked hundreds of times about steroid use. Consider the guy played with Jose Canseco who it turns out has slightly more credibility then we originally thought in the Bay area and has been associated with BALCO over and over again. While its never been confirmed MAc actually used steroids why wont he come out and deny it either? Its been asked so many times....sometimes where there is smoke there's fire. And when a player doesnt even issue a response implying innocence of any kind well, doesnt that kind of make you guilty? So there's guilt by association and guilt by self admission in a sense.
Point well made....however, in my opinion, they are asking him to answer questions not so much about him, but about players that came into the league shortly before his retirement that may still be playing. Why should he answer the questions? The investigations were not being conducted during the time he played, and the fact that he's not becoming a stool pigeon is respectable, alot more so than what Canseco has been doing. I think Mac didn't answer the questions to protect his family, and keep them out of the media circus, something like what the Bonds family has been through. But, then again, maybe it would help him to answer the questions. IMO, he should not be banned from the HOF for not answering questions that arose after his retirement!! The things he was taking were legal, by all standards, so why is he being punished now?
The thing is the accusations are probably part of caused his retirement. Mac should answers quenstions only about Mac, but he hasnt even done that. And you know what, I dont treat Canseco as a stool pigeon. Sometime sif you love the game you have to do what is right instead of what is popular so you have to protect it. Im not saying Canseco fits that criteria but maybe a little part of him feels that way. Maybe to a degree Canseco felt a small bit of wanting to protect the game that took a skinny cuban kid and made him a millionaire a hundred times over? I think its at least possible if not plausible. I respect Canseco more for at least having the guile to own up to what he did rather then be a wimp and say nothing at all. Athletes use their family as an excuse all the time and Mac didnt even say that about his own alleged usage. Mac, Bonds, Clemens and Sosa especially have shown themselves to be nothing but cowards.
Well this is the problem: Mac and Sosa never got caught. They never failed a drug test. People just assume that Mac and Sosa were on the juice (and yes I realize that most likely were) but without that failed drug test or proof it's a witch hunt. The problem is we really don't know who's on what or who was on what. Players are always looking for an edge and what some people can do with modern medicine and masking agents who knows who's on it. I realize that with guys like Bonds and Clemens as users and breaking all of these records it hurts the sport but my only point was that people give the NFL a free pass on almost everything while the MLB gets hammered everytime a player does something bad.
Maybe the long history thing, but I think it has more to do with the records being broken. How much more do you think it would have gotten publicized if merriman had lets say broken the single season sack record? People don't mind cheating as long as it doesn't have potenially long reaching effects IMO.
Canseco didn't come out to be honest and sincere about anything, certainly not to protect the integrity of baseball. Canseco did it because he was dead broke, and needed to make some money, and he saw the way by saying all those things about major league players. I am willing to bet that Canseco doesn't have many friends in the baseball world anymore.
On Merriman: I mind either way, record or no record. Sports to me represents one of the very few absolute truths in the world. Either you win or lose because you are better then your opponent or not good enough. When you change the playing field from equal to unequal that changes the way the game is played and truly taints it for me. That a record is broken or not bears little impact for me. If San Diego would have won a title that means their whole team accomplishment is tainted because of the dopey decision of one player. That goes whether we're talking about Shawne Merriman, Ronnie Brown (for example) or anyone else. Maybe thats a naive view, but that is how I have always viewed athletics and will continue to do so. I do think Merriman's incident would have been more publicized had it involved a record but Im not sure it would have even touched the same stratosphere as Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, or Clemens being hoarded by the media because the records they were broken were ones the public is a lot more familiar with. Even a very casual baseball fan knows Roger Maris' record, and Hank Aaron's record or has at least heard of those guys and their significance. Im not sure you can say that a casual football fan knows who Michael Strahan is and how many sacks he had in his record breaking season. Because Maris' and Aaron's records withstood the test of time and because the pursuit of their records was so anti climactic due to the frenzied media coverage I think the impact of those records was on a far greater scale then Merriman's.
Youre probably right but as a result we identified who the cheaters were and which records were real and which ones were fake. Or else we would still be cheering on cheaters. That may not mean a lot to you but it definitely means something to me.
In the mid to late 80's, it was an open secret that Canseco was juiced up, no one particularly cared at the time. As for McGwire, they were legal products when he used them, to follow the logic of "he was on roids" is impossible, they were not steroids per se, they were supplements, they were not designated illegal steroids until after McGwire left the game. He was a home run hitting machine before any of this came to light. And if Steroid use makes a player ineligible for the HoF, 2/3 of the NFL players from the 70's should have their busts removed from Canton.
I have a problem with Bonds and Clemens not getting in. We'll never know when they started taking them, but our guess is in the 98 through 04 time right? Before this Bonds and Clemens were some of the best players in the history of baseball and they should be honored. I think they just need to add an asterisk stating what they did. What is baseball going to do? Not let anyone from this era in the hall? We'll never know who did what and how far back it goes. For all i know Tony Gwynn used something(don't really think so but using him as an example). Oh and I also think Rose should be in.
The whole thing about keeping McGwire out because of steroids is ridiculous. You can't punish a guy for a rule that wasn't yet in force. McGwire could have injected himself with steroids, andro, bovine growth hormone or whatever right at first base in Busch Stadium in front of 50,000 Cardinal fans and there's not a thing baseball could have done about it. So now we're going to apply standards of reasoning that are better suited for a third world dictatorship? "It's illegal now, so let's punish anyone who ever did it!" (Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.) It's completely illogical. His testimony on Capitol Hill was evasive and cowardly? Yes, it was. So what? If you were a guy with a high school education being asked to testify before Congress about a complicated legal matter, you'd probably find that the less you said, the better off you'd be. If he were my client, I probably wouldn't have advised him to say anything differently. If we're going to do this, then let's start taking down all the plaques of players we know cheated. All those pitchers who used spitballs back when it was legal, plus Gaylord Perry. Let's take out Ty Cobb, too, since he constantly committed runner interference by using his spikes as a weapon against shortstops, catchers and anyone who had dark skin. Let's start a witch hunt for all those guys who used "greenies" back in the day. Amphetamines have been illegal for an awfully long time in the United States, after all. A friend of mine made the argument that steroids may have saved McGwire's career, and without them, he would have been washed up long before he started his assault on the record books. This point, at least, has some validity, though again, I point to the fact that roids were perfectly legal in MLB at the time he (probably) used them. Still, I could see a writer voting against him for that reason. I can live with that. I cannot, however, buy into this sanctimonious nonsense that demands rewriting history and punishing him for some half-witted testimony in front of a bunch of half-witted Congressmen.
You had me right up to the last paragraph. Rose should be out. He violated the absolute #1, don't ever do it rule of baseball: betting on the game. Worse yet that he did it as a manager. That's a rule that's been in force for much longer than Rose has been alive and it's not exactly a secret.
Newsflash: Steroids have been illegal. Maybe not in baseball but by law. You can kill Cobb for being a prick (he was) but the racism/hate he felt is wrong and silly, not illegal. There is a huge difference. Cobb was adequately punished for his on field antics during his playing days drawing suspensions and ejections. A nd I agree with you in regards to Perry and amphetamines (though Im not sure you can go back and undo something you have already done, in some cases posthumously). The same rules apply when Perry cheats via spitballs or sandpaper as it does to Mac or Bonds taking roids.
Not in this case Boik, what they were taking (or have been accused of ingesting) was NOT illegal, any more so then Vitamin C is illegal. The Chemist at Balco searched the Federal Code and discovered a whole class of 'roids that were not covered by the Anti Steroids laws. It involved processing acres of cow flop for trace amounts of already ingested Animal Steroids that had been altered by the digestive process..disgusting, but not illegal. In fact, Baseball never got around to banning them until maybe 03 or 04, what those fellas were taking was not only legal, they also were not banned by the MLB.
Right by that logic you could invent a less potent type of crack and say "its not covered by law" because it hasnt been invented yet. I know baseball didnt ban them until later but they shouldnt have even been in possession of, or ingesting a drug thats covered by federal law as illegal. Science will always be ahead of the law because in instances like this science is designed to circumvent the law. Bottom line is its still cheating. Roids are roids regardless of what type they are and where they came from and frankly I couldnt be happier that baseball writers everywhere are taking a moral highground on this. For once they have it right. So regardless of how you or I feel, I hope they sit on this moral highground they finally found and deny Mac, sosa, Bonds, Sheff, Canseco, Palmeiro, and Clemens entry to the hall..unless its as a visitor.
No, your logic doesn't follow, because it's still crack, and it's still treated as a controlled substance by law. The stuff McGwire took was legal at the time. And honestly, even if the idea of "it's only legal because science is ahead of the law" prevails, why would we hold those guys to that standard? I reiterate what I said above; we're not talking about a bunch of brain surgeons here, we're talking about guys who mostly have high school educations or the equivalent. A hard and fast rule is the standard to which they should be held. If baseball REALLY wanted to avoid the use of PEDs, stimulants and what not, they could just say that no performance enhancement beyond exercise, diet and a multivitamin are permitted, and then add allowed supplements on an annual basis. They didn't, so expecting someone like McGwire to make a distinction as to a legal and medical gray area is ridiculous in my book. That said, if you're on board with removing all the "greenie" users and spitballers from the Hall, as you indicated above, at least you're consistent in your thinking, so I can live with that. It's consistency that I'm looking for here more than anything else. And I'm just not seeing it from baseball or the voters.
There's definitely a double standard when it comes to perception of drugs in baseball and football. No doubt about it. I think that's due to the quaint (and by quaint, I mean outdated) notion that baseball is America's pastime, as well as the long standing precedent of involvement in baseball as opposed to other sports. The anti-trust exemption in MLB is something the NFL doesn't have, nor the NBA, nor NHL. The price for that has been scrutiny the other sports don't have.
Right but my logic isnt that we could just invent a new brand of crack and circumvent the law; its that science found a way to circumvent the law and theres no way to write a law in advance of what may hit the market next because we have no idea what will hit the market next. There are people out there whose sole purpose is to create drugs as a way to circumvent a law and that was clearly the case here. Why else would they have gone to such great lengths to do this? Your suggestion of banning everything works for me, though Im not sure its realistic. Personally i would love it. It would re-emphasize contact hitting, being able to use all fields and encourage players to be more complete rather then simply encouraging players to try and drive the ball all the time. And yeah I agree consistency would be nice but rejecting said cheaters is a start. I dont think they will go back and remove people (though i wouldnt be opposed to it) but I think their fear is all that may be left is Hank, Willie and maybe a handful of others.
