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In my opinion, absolutely.
In 1994 MLB went on strike and the then Montreal Expo’s lost any chance of claiming their first title. For the next few years, a lot of people just fell out of love with baseball. Then in 1998 Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire pretty much saved baseball and brought it back from the dead. The home run chase to beat Roger Marris’ record of 61 home runs was all everyone was talking about even weeks before the All-Star break. These two men did more for baseball in the next couple years than Bart Giamatti, Fay Vincent, Bud Selig, and Rob Manfred have done for it in their careers. People complain about PED’s and yes, they can skew numbers, but not to the point of abolishing a man’s entire career.
Tommy John Surgery vs. HGH
Honestly, what is the uproar about human growth hormone (HGH) to rejuvenate muscles, chronic pain and the like? I mean if your stance is “It’s not natural” …well you know what? Neither is taking a tendon out of your leg or another human cadaver and slapping it into your body. But hey, Tommy John Surgery is all the rage to extend a player’s career, am I right? Where is the outrage? I mean come on. If they treated those who’ve had Tommy John Surgery like they do with those who have used HGH, you would lose hundreds of players over the past 30 plus years. Off the top of my head, Paul Molitor and John Smoltz would be removed from the Hall of Fame.
Remember skinny little McGwire in his rookie year? The guy jacked 49 home runs, clearly no steroids then. Roger Clemens, who is undoubtedly one of the top 10 pitchers of all-time probably won’t get in. He NEVER tested positive for anything. And now, there are reports that Clemens may have been telling the truth the entire time. Barry Bonds is another one. Now sure he doesn’t have the warmest personality and I’m sure some people hold that against him in their minds, but would you be warm and fuzzy if you had never once tested positive for something, yet the public was convinced you were guilty and booed and harassed you for over a decade? I’d probably be a little unfriendly as well.
Why was Schilling snubbed?
Curt Schilling, why isn’t he in the HOF? His resumé speaks for itself. When he was with the Phillies, Red Sox and the Diamondbacks, the dude was as solid as they come… but he won’t get in because of his politics. That is absolutely one of the biggest injustices in the history of baseball in recent times.
Don’t even get me started on the Pete Rose situation.
All these sports reporters who’ve never played a single day of competitive athletics are so quick to judge while having no experience whatsoever. I often wonder had MLB collapsed after the strike of ’94 and Sosa and McGwire never had the “Chase for 61” how many of these HOF voters would be where they are today? Rather just doing the sportscast on some local no-name TV station. So many people owe so much to these guys, and they are completely oblivious to it. They claim they hold a high moral compass, well maybe someone should start digging into their past. I’m game for that.
I look forward to reading your emails and comments. You can always reach out to me by email at TheBigTykie@gmail.com
The Baseball Hall of Fame is one of the biggest jokes in sports history. However, the reason why Sosa, McGwire, Bonds, etc. aren’t in has nothing to do with steroids. The voters have already proven they will vote in players who are either linked to PEDs or are highly suspected users. They’ve already voted in four players who are on the 2003 list: Ivan Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez, and Roberto Alomar, and in a few months will likely vote in two others, Todd Helton and Adrian Beltre.
For years, the writers didn’t elect Jeff Bagwell or Mike Piazza, both obvious Hall of Famers, citing suspicion they were users, but after a few years of the internet complaining about them not being elected, the writers suddenly changed their tune and elected them, saying suspicion wasn’t enough to keep a player out. However suspicion is all they have for a player like Sammy Sosa, and somehow that is enough to keep him out.
Oh, and Bud Selig is in as well, and he oversaw the entire era as the commissioner. If that doesn’t prove the whole thing’s a sham, I don’t know what will.
That’s to say nothing of the fact that the HOF voters for decades have voted in countless players who have used all sorts of PEDs. Amphetamines were rampant in the MLB for decades, and several Hall of Famers are confirmed users. Steroids were also used in the MLB since at least the 70s and probably sooner than that. There probably isn’t a single Hall of Famer who played in the 60s, 70s, or 80s that was clean. Much of the history of the MLB has been filled with rampant drug use. You can also be sure that today’s players are using whatever they can get away with using, especially since there’s more money at stake now than ever before.
If Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire aren’t in the Hall of Fame, then there’s no point of there being a Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame should then be shut down. It ceases to be relevant or about baseball. Instead it becomes about politics, grudges, revenge, public image, and the writers themselves, who seem to see themselves as more important than the actual players. Power corrupts, and the baseball writers, when given power, have proven that they will abuse it for well over a decade now, if not for ages. It’s far past time that the character clause, at the very least, be removed, if not the writers themselves being removed as well. Corruption should not stand.
But when you realize that those at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and Major League Baseball don’t want fair and unbiased Hall of Fame elections, then you realize why they not only don’t get rid of the character clause, but why they implemented the character clause in the first place – to keep players they don’t like for whatever reason out of their exclusive little club that they gatekeep and that makes them feel special. They need to get over themselves. They’re not special or important. They’re opinions don’t matter. They can’t rewrite the history of the 1990s and early 2000s. The public knows who the real Hall of Famers are. That era was the best era, and everybody knows it.