Associated Press
Sports Editor
If a player is found to have used performance-enhancing drugs, then that player should not be voted into the Hall of Fame.
About 21 years ago, the Baseball Writers Association of America voted to permanently ban Pete Rose from the Hall of Fame.
His crime? Betting on baseball games.
Betting on baseball games is definitely not something to be taken lightly, but the fact that Rose gambled didn’t help him reach 4,256 hits, the all-time record.
If Pete Rose is permanently banned from the Hall of Fame, then it would be a travesty (and awfully hypocritical) for other players associated with cheating to have an honorary place in baseball’s history books.
Keeping these players out of the Hall of Fame helps the game of baseball in the long run.
The voters can help make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself.
If the voters send a powerful message and keep all of the known steroid abusers out of the Hall of Fame, then players who are tempted to use the next popular drug will see what is happening now and will know people will find out in the future.
The only way to get into the Hall of Fame and be remembered as one of the greatest players of all time is to stay clean and play baseball the way it was meant to be played.
Even if the cheating was as widespread as some fear it may have been, future players need to know that cheating will not be tolerated.
It’s like the old adage your mother used to tell you.
“If everyone jumped off of a cliff, would you do it too?”
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa seem to have jumped off of that cliff, and there is no climbing back up.
By Daniel Hill
Sports Writer
The endless debate about the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame is overwhelmingly subjective. Baseball writers want to protect the integrity of the Hall of Fame and not let anyone with any connection whatsoever to steroids or other performance enhancing drugs in.
How do the baseball writers, or anyone else for that matter, play judge and jury to know whether or not someone used performance-enhancing drugs? It’s impossible to figure out. What if someone already is in the Hall who used these drugs? We might never know the truth.
The Hall of Fame is meant to be the history keeper and preserver of baseball history. How can the Hall of Fame pretend like the historic home run record chase of 1998 between Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa didn’t exist? Who is to judge whether or not Jeff Bagwell did steroids? Bagwell had some muscle on his frame, but he was never linked to steroids. How can the Hall of Fame punish Bagwell just because he was a muscular baseball player?
The voters denied all-time greats like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens from being first-ballot inductees. The bottom line is that players like Bonds and Clemens were the defining ballplayers of the era.
Baseball simply can’t pretend like steroid use was never a part of the game.
Everybody now knows that steroids were rampant in baseball throughout the 1990’s and 2000’s. It was part of the history of the game, and the Hall of Fame can’t deny it.
have hit 762 home runs in his career, but baseball fans don’t acknowledge him as the actual home run king. That title is reserved for Hank Aaron who hit 755 home runs in his career without the use of PED’s.
Baseball players inducted into the Hall of Fame from the Steroid Era will naturally fall under immense scrutiny. They will also be judged based on the inflated statistics of the Steroid Era. Pitchers and hitters alike were both cheating. Therefore, baseball players had a level playing field despite the obvious chemical enhancement.
Mistakes of the past can’t just be forgotten. The Hall of Fame is about the history of baseball. Unfortunately for baseball, its history is marred with cheating. Baseball can’t wipe its hands clean from the past and it shouldn’t try to.
