baseball hall of "very good"

Bucky said:

OMG. Is baseball really going to put in Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, Edgar Martinez in the HOF in before Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Pudge Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa?

Bagwell was a really good first basemen. Hardly a Hall of Famer. Edgar Martinez didn't even play the infield, he was a DH.

It really makes me wonder. Bagwell, Martinez, Chipper Jones - These players used PEDS and Andro, illegal substances yet do not receive any backlash.

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None of the three you mentioned -- Bags, Edgar or Chipper -- failed a test or was implicated in any serious way. The others were.

Now, my personal druthers are to let everyone in, including the proven steroid guys like Bonds, Clemens, Sosa and (by implication) Pudge, but the Hall voters seem hellbent on being arbiters of the Steroid Era.

Perotista said:

I grew up in an era 1950's and early 60's where a plus .300 average, 500 home runs and 3,000 hits was sort of the markers for the HOF.

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And those were bull****, arbitrary benchmarks that excluded lots of players.

Batting average is possibly the most overrated stat in baseball. And 500 homers? Seriously? The vast majority of HOFers didn't hit 500 homers.

Bucky said:

No one has no idea who was 100% clean and who was dirty.

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^ Absolutely true. Now I need a shower.

Perotista said:

Others don't think so. The MLB Network and writers who vote think he didn't, but he has been associated with those who did. No way to prove one way or the other, only how one believes.

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Let's not pretend baseball is some sort of Church. The HOF is filled with cheaters. Paul Molitor and others were cocaine users. Tim Raines snorted while in a live game!!!

I am going to call a spade a spade. The BBWAA gets to cherry pick those that they like and punish those they didn't like.

We are punishing player that took steroids in an era where taking steroids were encouraged by MLB officials, managers, and trainers!

Why didn't Tony La Russa, Joe Torre, Mike Hargrove, Bobby Cox, Bruce Bochy or Dusty Baker say anything? Do you believe La Russa that he did not have any knowledge of what was going on?

Why didn't GMs or MLB executives say anything? Where was the media asking questions about this during 1998?

Since no one person can be blamed, especially any specific players, all players that took steroids should have been given immunity. That would be the fair thing to do.

I remember this article:

No matter which slugger comes out on top – Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa – no matter whether today is even the final day of this amazing major league regular season, the biggest winner will be the game of baseball itself.

McGwire's and Sosa's home runs have helped to revive a sport that seemed in decline four years ago when a labor dispute forced cancellation of the 1994 World Series. Until this season, attendance remained below 1994 levels. Fans seemed to be coming back a bit at a time, but because of Sosa and McGwire, they came back in a rush.

The sluggers proved that baseball still has the power to thrill fans and to create tension and drama. Fans latched onto the home run chase with ferocity and passion, some driving for hours and then paying hundreds of dollars for tickets to watch every minute of batting practice and then to see a game.

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Washingtonpost.com: The National Pastime Is Back in Full Swing

Without the Home Run chase, MLB could have went bankrupt.

I gave up paying attention to individual baseball records because of the steroid era.

Nobody really knows who did what and when, with the exception of who actually got caught red handed, and some self admitted users.



I think the last HOF vote that I paid attention to was this one........