Today is a momentous day for the good people who get to vote
for the MLB’s Hall of Fame. Today is the day where a precedent is set for the
future of the boys of summer. Do these voters let into the Hall some of the men
who either allegedly or literally tarnished the league or sullied the game of
baseball forever? What is the statement that’s going to be made about plays
like Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, and Clemons? It’s going to be tough sledding for the
voters because they have at least two courts to answer to, the court of public
opinion, as well as the courts of this great land. The problem with baseball is
always what has always drawn me to baseball as a sports fan, the history and
it’s love of precedent.
When
listening to baseball highlights you start to notice how incredible the records
truly are, not for how many triples a player hit or which team set the record
for double plays in a season, it’s how long records have stood. You’ll hear
about players that are breaking records that have stood since 1920 or even earlier
and all that history has sunken in to the great cathedrals of baseball like
pine tar has sunken into George Brett’s bat. It’s deep; it’s in there, like the
roots into the mortar of Wrigley’s wall. Baseball has been America’s longest
running professional sport, being founded in 1875; do you know what else
happened in 1875? BYU is founded, Captain Webb swam the English Channel for the
first time, and the first organized game of indoor ice hockey was played.
Though some events are momentous, others are only decent there is still all
that history crammed into the tight seats of Fenway, the street cars tinged
with the smell of boiled hot dogs outside of Ebbet’s field in Brooklyn, the
pinstripes that haven’t changed on a Yankee uniform in possibly ever. But with
the weight of all those years, all those ticket stubs, how do the voters for
this Hall of Fame class make a choice, how do the stand? Here’s where I want
them to stand, skeptical.
I don’t
think a single member of the 1st ballot list is an out-and-out hall
of famer until it is concretely decided that they did not cheat. Pete Rose, one
of the greatest players in all of baseball, one of the toughest men ever, was
concretely decided to have cheated and has not seen his bust unveiled in
Cooperstown to this day. If we, as a sporting community, going to let ole
Charley Hustle to purgatory even though he has come clean about his gambling on
baseball (note: he claims to have never bet AGAINST the Reds during his tenure)
but we may let more dubious characters like Clemons, Bonds and Sosa in? That
seems specious to me. All of the heavy hitters were cleared of all wrongdoing
legally but I think that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans to me or the rest of
the sports world. Sports fans have a hard time letting go, and I am most
definitely having a hard time giving them a pass. That being said, there are
guys that I think are definitely hall of fame material even if they weren’t the
Herculean figures that the big names are (looking at you Craig Biggio and Mike
Piazza) because they were journeymen, guys who stuck out long careers grinding
out doubles in the dog days well past their primes.
What is
really important here is understanding that the big guys on the ballot this
year are not necessarily banned like Pete Rose is. I think that that we need a
continuance while the voters, the fans and the rest of the Hall of Fame members
mull over how they feel about how PED’s affected the game and affected the game
of these players. Lance Armstrong was stripped of his Tour De France titles and
will never be admitted into any sports hall as the beacon of light that he was
once thought to be. Hopefully the same isn’t said about The Rocket, Slammin’
Sammy, and Mark “Big Red” McGwire because they were all titans when I was a
young little leaguer watching the ole ball game with my dad on stuffy summer
days in Philadelphia heat. I remember watching live, the moment of Sammy Sosa
and Mark McGwire hugging after McGwire crushed a ball to break the single
season record, I remember the reactions and the excitement and the electricity
that leaped from the field and through my television. These players, these men,
are some of the greatest players to have ever dawned major league uniforms and
hopefully they can be immortalized and can be recognized for their
accomplishments but they must be looked at for more than just the perpetrators of the worst scandal baseball has yet to face.
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