For only the second time in four decades, the national baseball writers have left us with nothing to celebrate next July. Nobody is going into the Hall of Fame.
Upon first glance, this seems outrageous. There were plenty of good candidates ”¦ even without the likes of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and others who polluted the waters with steroids.
Why not Jack Morris? Or Craig Biggio? Alan Trammell? Even Curt Schilling ”¦ players whose statistics might not have glittered as brightly as the aforementioned, but whose contributions to the game are still immense?
Would this not have been a good time — if their intention was to let the steroid people cool their heels for a year or two — to reward some others for productive, and, perhaps, more honest careers?
If you could make the Hall of Fame based on a game or two both Morris and Schilling would definitely qualify. Morris’ performance in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series is the stuff of legends (in all, he helped pitch three teams to championships). Schilling helped pitch the Arizona Diamondbacks to a world title in 2001 and then — bloody sock Stigmata and all — willed the 2004 Red Sox to another crown. Surely those feats count for something.
But perhaps the writers felt that if the greats didn’t belong, the near-greats didn’t either. That would seem to be the logical conclusion.
If their careers ended before they ever took an injection, Bonds and Clemens are still Hall of Famers. Each was the best at what he did before the infusion of steroids tainted the whole sport.
It’s probably true that whatever they took allowed them to prolong that greatness well into what would otherwise have been the twilights of their careers. But they were both legitimate superstars before any of that ever happened.
Clemens and Bonds should — and will — get in at some point (Sosa I’m not so sure about). But I also understand why writers felt that electing them on the first ballot would send a horrible message about cheating and getting away with it.
And if you’re not going to elect bona fide Hall of Famers, you can’t elect anyone whose talent and statistics don’t approach those of the people you’re leaving out. That’s equally dishonest.
(One aside to all of this ”¦ compared to this rampant and overt cheating, Pete Rose’s transgressions amount to stealing a stick of chewing gum from the penny candy counter, and baseball clearly needs to address this in the sense that his name has never appeared on a ballot.)
So, until the Baseball Writers Association of America decides that Clemens and Bonds (sorry, I put Sosa in the same category as Mark McGwire) have been sufficiently punished for their transgressions, and until someone of equal caliber is up for election (such as Junior Griffey, Tom Glavine or Gregg Maddux), expect more players to be summarily rejected. It’s the only honest thing to do.
Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].
