No steroids guys in Cooperstown.
No Roger Clemens. No Barry Bonds. No Mark McGwire. No Sammy Sosa. No Rafael Palmeiro. No Alex Rodriguez. Nobody within a syringe of evidence showing they were artificially enhanced during any portion of their playing career.
I don't care that Ty Cobb was a racist (and possibly worse), that Mickey Mantle joined others as prolific drunks, and that Gaylord Perry spit his way into Cooperstown. They're already in the Hall of Fame. I can't do anything about their entries, but I can do something about Clemens, Bonds and the rest.
I also don't care that shunning those from the Steroids Era will shrink the number of future Hall of Fame inductees by a bunch. If you can breathe and dribble a little, you're a candidate for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The point is, in contrast to most of the other Halls of Fame in amateur and professional sports, Cooperstown is more about quality than quantity.
Mostly, I don't care that you're innocent until proven guilty under the law of the land. The law of common sense historically and rightfully overrides the judicial system when it comes to sports entities passing judgment.
And if somebody slips across Cooperstown's city limits before folks discover he was guilty of steroids use, no problem. Baseball should do what college football once did to Billy Cannon when he was in its Hall of Fame and later was arrested by the feds on counterfeiting charges: Just kick the guy out.
That's the easy part. The difficult part is convincing others that Jackson, Rice, Telander and I have it exactly right, because we do.
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LeBron James #23 of the Cleveland Cavaliers watches as Mo Williams #2 takes a shoe to the face by Kobe Bryant #24 of the Los Angeles Lakers after a steal in the closing seconds of the first half at The Quicken Loans Arena on February 8, 2009 in Cleveland, Ohio. (David Liam Kyle, NBAE/Getty Images)
David Liam Kyle, NBAE/Getty Images
Brazil's Diogo (L) vies for the ball with Paraguay's Hernan Perez during their U-20 South American Championship football match in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela on February 8, 2009.(Juan Barreto, AFP/Getty Images )
Juan Barreto, AFP/Getty Images
A Dalmatian looks at its handler as a judge goes to touch the dog during the first day of the 2009 Westminster Dog Show in New York February 9, 2009.(Lucas Jackson, Reuters)
Lucas Jackson, Reuters
Denver Nuggets forward Chris Anderson touches his head during a time out in the first half of their NBA basketball game with the New Jersey Nets in East Rutherford, New Jersey February 7, 2009. (Ray Stubblebine, Reuters)
Ray Stubblebine, Reuters
Margarita Marbler, of Austria, skis to a bronze medal finish the ladies moguls freestyle FIS World Cupskiing qualification at Cypress mountain in West Vancouver, British Columbia, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009. (Jonathan Hayward, The Canadian Press/AP)
Jonathan Hayward, The Canadian Press/AP
West Virginia guard Darryl Bryant (25) is fouled by Providence guard Jeff Xavier (1) during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in Morgantown, W.Va. Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009. West Virginia won 86-59. (Don Wright, AP)
Don Wright, AP
Missouri's DeMarre Carroll, top, celebrates the Tigers' 62-60 win over Kansas in Columbia, Missouri, Monday, February 9, 2009. (Rich Sugg, Kansas City Star/MCT)
Rich Sugg, Kansas City Star/MCT
David Clarkson #23 of the New Jersey Devils fights Erik Reitz #4 of the New York Rangers during their game on February 9, 2009 at The Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey (Al Bello, Getty Images)
Al Bello, Getty Images
Driver Patrick Sheltra (60) begins to spin coming out of the fourth turn during the ARCA 200 auto race in Daytona Beach, Fla. Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009.
Darryl Graham, AP
Spain's Nuria Llagostera Vives serves the ball, in this multiple exposure, to Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic during their Fed Cup tennis match in Brno February 7, 2009.
Petr Josek, Reuters
With the latest Hall of Fame ceremonies slated for this weekend, Telander even presented a proposal at a recent meeting of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA). He approached the group, because BBWAA members for 10 consecutive years are eligible to vote for Hall of Famers. Telander wanted the group to form a committee to develop guidelines for evaluating players from the Steroids Era when it comes to Hall of Fame voting.
Nice try, Rick. After much debate, Telander's proposal was slammed out of the ballpark toward the game's Never Never Land with Charlie Finley's orange baseballs. We're left with the likelihood that a slew of cheats will be immortalized in bronze forever. That's because opponents to Telander's proposal ask several questions.
How do you define the beginning and the end of the Steroids Era, when players still are getting nabbed despite baseball's significant drug-testing program and world-wide attention on the subject?
What criteria would you use to establish that somebody was from the Steroids Era and was a user?
If somebody took the stuff at the end of their otherwise Hall of Fame career, do you send them to Cooperstown anyway?
The answer to those questions is the same: When in doubt, keep them out.
Such a stance was implied by the founding fathers of baseball's Hall of Fame guidelines, and this was sort of the stuff of those other founding fathers who developed the U.S. Constitution. George Washington and his 18th century gang wanted a document that would adapt to whatever happened in the future, but they also wanted it to keep the original intent of its authors.
You have strict constructionists, who take the Constitution literally, and you have loose constructionists, who read between its lines.
That brings us back to the BBWAA, which allows Hall of Fame voters to use their own interpretation of rules that are vague but specific. The rules say each voter should consider a player's "record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played."
As a Hall of Fame voter, I'm a strict constructionist. To me, the key words in those rules are "integrity" and "character." You don't have integrity or character by using steroids. So no Hall of Fame entry for any of these knuckleheads.
Simple.
Loose constructionists see the key words in those rules as "record," "ability" and "contributions." To them, it sort of matters that a guy used steroids, but they mention he still had to swing, throw, run and catch at a high level.
Not so simple.
This is simpler: Just listen to Jackson, Rice, Telander and me.
Terence Moore is a national columnist and commentator for FanHouse. He is a frequent panelist on "Rome Is Burning", an ESPN show hosted by Jim Rome, that is seen Monday through Friday at 4:30 PM ET. Moore spent more than three decades working for major newspapers, including 26 years as an award-winning sports columnist for the San Francisco Examiner and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He resides in Atlanta .
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
7-21-2009 @ 12:15AM
James said...
This article is pretty funny. Most the players inducted into the Hall over the last 30 years have all used PEDs. Reggie Jackson was full of steroids. 104 'Un-named" players in today's game tested positive for PEDs, but BUD and Sen. Mitchell decided to cover their names up. Roids. HGH, etc have been in sports since the 1960's.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2005-05-03-steroids-house_x.htm
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7-21-2009 @ 4:40PM
fahded25 said...
And you may be right, but youre missing one important fact. Steroids werent made illegal until 1988. What the guys were using back them wasnt banned by baseball nor was it illegal. Big difference between that era and this era where thery are banned by MLB and considered illegal to have in your possesion.
7-21-2009 @ 12:31AM
Classius said...
Yeah...except baseball is the most boring 'sport' outside of watching a NASCAR race, paint dry, grass grow, the mat of hair forming on the back of my cat, or anything on FOX News. I'm not impressed by a guy that can hit .275, 15 home runs and 90 RBIs yearly for a career yet have an average yearly salary higher than every school teacher in the US COMBINED. And then the best of them take PEDs on top of that? I'll stick with soccer, which I'm sure someone will say makes me less of an American.
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7-21-2009 @ 12:50AM
Matt said...
LOL @ this whole article
What about Pudge Rodriguez? What about Craig Biggio? What about Pedro? What about Robbie Alomar? Come on, we KNOW that at least two of those guys were users, but by your standards they're okay to be in because we don't really know if there's a flaw in their "integrity" or their "character".
Making this a black and white issue with no gray area is pretty much the workings of a simple mind.
Let me turn the argument around. If they shouldn't be eligible for the HoF, why stop there? Why should they even be eligible to play at all after a suspension or an admission?
If you claim that putting guys in the HoF is somehow different, yet allowing guys like A-Rod to continue to shatter records is okay, then I'll be glad to make it black and white for you...you're a hypocrite plain and simple.
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7-21-2009 @ 12:58PM
tonyd said...
And as we write Manny's "doctor" and
A-Roids "cousin" are supplying them with the 2009 top of the line "Masking Agent". No way should those cheaters make the HoF. BTW they will both wind up with small dicks and big boobs. A-Roid better score every Hollywood bimbo while he can.
7-21-2009 @ 1:25AM
kitchiner408 said...
Plain and simple its been in every sport since the 60's James's article hit it on the head. alot of these writers are just trying say that they did something to clean up the game. If you allow these guys to continue playing then let them in the hall. If not and I were the players I would boycot playing. This would force MLB to change its hall of fame voting policies because they would loose tons of players, and thus money, If these filthy rich players decided to strike. Lets get a different hall of fame voting systems, players owners, writers, distingushed fans. Writers have way to much power
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7-21-2009 @ 3:29PM
bfmgoalie said...
The players wouldn't stop playing because THEY want the money!!! MLB would lose tons of money.....Rules - You take any type of drug; you're out. No questions asked! If this is established, MLB will not lose players.
Think about it.....If you were making millions of dollars a year at your job, would you threaten losing your income by taking drugs? And if you did take drugs and your employer found out, you'd probably lose your job. Hence, you won't risk losing your job. The initiation of using drugs caused the problem; it now needs to be stopped. As far as the Hall of Fame, if there's such a stink, put them in. But make a isolated portion inside the Hall. By allowing players in the Hall who broke the rules, mixed messages are being sent out. So, if your son/daughter are high level athletes and you want them in their sport's hall of fame, using drugs is okay? Analyze the entire spectrum of this drug related issue, not just acceptance to the Hall of Fame.
7-21-2009 @ 2:36AM
Wade said...
Ryan Howard. Any other SMS player. I guess it's easier to paint with a broad brush.
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7-21-2009 @ 2:41AM
Michael said...
I second that - something has to be done about the loose criteria for allowing sportswriters to vote on the Hall.
When the kind of ignorance in this article seems to be echoed by writers who sound more like hot-talk radio callers, it's clear that BBWAA membership is far from a trademark of quality.
There should be some sort of criteria for journalists to earn their credentials through distinguished writing, not the kind of drivel found here, where the author's own opinions on whether someone did steroids is enough for a self-righteous "banning."
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7-21-2009 @ 4:10AM
captnwmkidd said...
Mr. Moore, I agree with you.
"The penalty good men pay for indifference is to be ruled by corrupt men.
If we do nothing, then those who read our history will be betrayed by it." Plato
With Bonds passing Aaron, Ruth, Mays and Griffey Jr. and with Sosa and McGuire passing Robinson, Killebrew and Jackson, we are in essence giving our approval for their acts by our indifference.
We are stating as a society that their deeds were not corrupt enough to garner our disdain and to correct their wrongs.
Anything less and we are weakening the Hall's records, baseball as a whole and our resolve to be sacred guardians and keepers of our history.
Even though it wasstated in sarcasm, I agree that banishing a player from baseball and wiping their records off the books on their first offense would clear the sport of steroid use rather quickly and, in the process, be more in line if we truly want to keep tainted records out of the Hall.
Betting on games receives a lifetime ban after one offense, and has deterred that offense quite successfully. So why are we treating steroid use differently and optimistically expecting the same results?
A strong commissioner would have been invaluable during these rocky uncharted waters.
Ken Griffey Jr. should be #4 on the Home Run list behind Aaron, Ruth and Mays.
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7-21-2009 @ 10:19AM
5thStFreddie said...
The person who should be kicked out first is Bud Selig, baseball's p.r. director -- I mean commissioner -- who knew about this stuff and did nothing because it made the game more exciting to watch these drug-addled behemoths knocking the ball over the outfield roofs. How will you determine who did and who didn't? I don't believe anyone who used illegal orbanned substances should be allowed in the Hall of Fame: that's the least punishment they could possibly receive. No one is asking them to give back the multi-millions they earned, and the cars, the houses, the retirement accounts. That's what they were really playing for: the love of the game died with a lot of them a long time ago. But there has to be some guidelines for evaluating...let someone propose it to the other writers, and build a consensus. To hell with the league: let's see the baseball writers show some guts and some initiative..
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7-21-2009 @ 10:29AM
jzz3skys said...
Steroids didn't start with BALCO and for those who haven't read "Game of Shadows," it's mostly about the sport of track and field.
Read Carl Lewis's 1990 book "Inside Track" which makes the case against the dirty coaches of that era, long before Trevor Graham. You'll recognize these names: Al Joyner and Bobby Kersee. You sure you want to go there?
The sport of cycling is now considering a 4-year suspension instead of 2, which sounds like a good idea. But Major League Baseball has already proven that even when their big money makers like Manny are caught in the act, they won't get more than a slap on the wrist by comparison. So enough!
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7-21-2009 @ 11:12AM
Stephanie said...
Agreed. Legends like Reggie Jackson deserve to be recognized for their amazing accomplishments. It's not fair to have guys who get help from drugs to surpass guys who worked hard the right and legal way.
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7-21-2009 @ 11:32AM
aspira said...
If you keep these players out, you will make the Baseball Hall of Fame into a joke. Granted, the Veterans Committee would eventually vote them in anyway, but by that time it will be too late. You can't just change the criteria of a Hall of Fame. The Hall has been inducting cheaters, including users of performance enhancing drugs, since the beginning, without giving the issue a second thought. You yourself have no doubt already helped to vote such players in. If you want to have a Hall of Fame for players who didn't cheat , start a new one. You can't go back to a Hall without cheaters and drug users anymore than you can go back to a Hall that includes only the Babe Ruths and Lou Gehrigs.
No one can stop you from indulging your hypocritical self-righteousness. But I guarantee history will hold you accountable for the mess that you create. Sportswriters (among many others) enabled and protected the use of performance enhancing drugs for decades; trying to cleanse yourselves by keeping all steroid users out of the Hall (which won't work anyway, since many are still unidentified) will only make a further mockery of the role sportswriters have played in this saga, and will do far more damage to baseball than the use of performance enhancing drugs ever did.
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7-21-2009 @ 12:06PM
stoeten said...
The Hall is a museum to the history of baseball, and nobody should think it's acceptable to give these writers so much license to whitewash an era that they were complicit in. They didn't ask enough questions about why records were suddenly falling, why players were transforming into hulking monsters. They didn't want to lose their precious access, or to kill the golden goose, so they didn't do their jobs. Now they want to take the moral high ground and paint the steroid era as entirely the work of rogue players under cover of darkness? Give me a break. The writers who ignored and downplayed this story for years have no right to cut out their own cynical, incompetent history from it.
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7-21-2009 @ 12:58PM
Mark said...
Moore is nothing but a complete joke.
"I don't care that Ty Cobb was a racist (and possibly worse), that Mickey Mantle joined others as prolific drunks, and that Gaylord Perry spit his way into Cooperstown. They're already in the Hall of Fame. I can't do anything about their entries, but I can do something about Clemens, Bonds and the rest."
First Clemens has not been proven yet (though i suspect he has) , and Gaylord Perry by your own admission was a cheater. I have no problem with the steroid users being kept out, but if you got known cheats in the hall then they should be taken out.
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7-21-2009 @ 2:44PM
geraldr5 said...
What total hypocrisy!!! Every sportswriter worth his salt knows that steroids have been used for years in MOST sports. Baseball is being signaled out because a few of the guys decided to rat on each other, and Major League Baseball can't keep its confidental records confidential. If you'r gonna keep baseball players out of the Hall of Fame, how about the Pro Football Hall of Fame? The College Hall of Fame? All-Pro? All-American? Where do you draw the line...in a place where sportswriters have to do the least work and they can rely on the words of the Jose Canseco's of the world? You sanctimoniuous people make me sick!!!
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7-21-2009 @ 2:49PM
joecas47 said...
MLB know and condoned the usage for years. Until the fools in the mainstream media and our wonderful government got involved who im sure would not like their human behavior or skeletons be let out it wasnt an issue. Besides some athletes used steroids to heal faster from injuries. Anyone who gets injured receives steroids to heal faster to return to their jobs. Why not them. The snap judjment in our society has become a joke. Screw all of you.
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7-21-2009 @ 2:52PM
jamcarr3 said...
keep em out they can become wrestlers and maybe get into the steriod queens hall of fame heehehe
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7-21-2009 @ 3:23PM
Koch said...
Until they allow pete Rose into the hall of fame it will be a joke and no one should be allowed in. For the steroid and other drugs users they should have the hall of shame, then they would have a plce to put them.
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