Baseball
Add news
News

Alexander: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens stopped short of Hall of Fame

0 4
Alexander: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens stopped short of Hall of Fame

The naysayers have spoken. Again.

It has been a full decade that we’ve been debating the Baseball Hall of Fame cases of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, whose numbers speak for themselves but whose alleged PED use has discouraged many of the voting members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America from checking either man’s name on their ballots.

And so both men’s eligibility for the writers’ vote officially ended Tuesday, when the results of the 2022 voting were revealed. David Ortiz will go into the Hall in July, having had his name checked off on 304 of the 396 ballots (including mine), at 77.9% semi-comfortably beyond the 75% needed for induction.

Bonds and Clemens, flashpoints in the argument over how the Steroid Era should be viewed, had their candidacies stall toward the end of the 10-year eligibility period. Bonds received 260 votes (66%), on the 2022 ballot after polling 61.8 and 60.7 the previous two years. Clemens received 257 votes (65.2%), after reaching 61.6 and 61.0 in 2021 and ’20.

I’m curious about those who voted for one and not the other, considering that their careers seemed intertwined through this process. The guy who won seven MVP awards and the guy who won seven Cy Young Awards created a vehicle to discuss the impact of the Steroid Era, and their place on the ballot was nicely timed to coincide with the explosive growth of social media and its, um, argumentative nature.

The conversation about the results announced Tuesday afternoon included this point: Ortiz tested positive for PEDs in survey testing in 2003 – what was supposed to be an anonymous test until Ortiz’s name was among those leaked to the New York Times six years later – but, to be fair, he never popped a positive once baseball went to full testing and suspensions.

“We have someone coming out with this one list that you don’t know what anybody test positive for,” Ortiz said in a Zoom session following the announcement. “So all of a sudden people (are) pointing fingers at me. But then we start, you know, being drug tested and I never failed a test. What does that tell you?”

The other way to look at this issue, although it’s kind of an apples and oranges argument. Bud Selig, the commissioner who presided over the Steroid Era and for a good portion of it seemed to be looking the other way, is in the Hall of Fame. Is it logical to be that self-righteous with Bonds and Clemens?

A good percentage of the electorate – though not the 75% necessary – said no. Some writers weren’t interested in being the steroid police after the fact. Others figure that the Hall already has inducted players of dubious innocence. And there is the sense that since the museum is a brick-and-mortar repository of baseball lore, how do you simply omit or ignore a significant part of that history?

For the record: My ballot included Ortiz, as noted above, and it also included Bonds and Clemens, as it has each of the last nine years. I also voted for Todd Helton, Scott Rolen, Gary Sheffield, Billy Wagner – and, yes, Alex Rodriguez, because like it or not, the numbers don’t lie.

The case for Bonds and Clemens: Both established Hall of Fame credentials well before their (alleged) use of PEDs. And they certainly would not have been the only ones using, because before the players union agreed to testing in 2002 baseball might have been the Wild, Wild West. The Mitchell Report – the PDF of which can still be accessed on MLB.com 13 years after it was compiled – not only makes that abundantly clear but suggests that the playing field was far more even than you might have thought.

(You think that inclination to use every edge, legal and otherwise, is a thing of the past? May we introduce you to the dramatic difference in pitchers’ spin rates – and not just a few pitchers but a lot of them – after MLB’s crackdown on the use of sticky substances last June.)

The case against Bonds and Clemens? Yes, it’s been pretty well established that they cheated. But since it’s also been pretty well established that they were far from the only ones to do so, and they were still the best of their era by far, we’re back to square one.

The arguments won’t end here, not yet. The door to Cooperstown via the writers’ ballot is now closed, but the Today’s Game veterans committee will ponder their credentials in December as well as those of Curt Schilling and Sammy Sosa, who also dropped off the ballot after this election.

And it probably will make little difference to those committee members who will face that question at the end of the year, but let’s let Ortiz have the last word.

“Look, man, I remember one time when I used to be with the Mariners,” he said. “I remember seeing Barry Bonds walking across the field and I remember watching him hit in batting practice. And right away he became my idol. … This is a guy who played the game through a whole totally different level.

“And Roger the Rocket – when I see these guys, to be honest with you. I don’t even compare myself to them because I saw those guys performing, and it was something that it was very special. Not having them join me (in the Hall) is something that is hard for me to believe, to be honest with you.”

Oh, but just imagine the fun that’s yet to come. We’ve still got all those years ahead of us to debate A-Rod’s fitness for the Hall.

jalexander@scng.com

@Jim_Alexander on Twitter

Загрузка...

Comments

Комментарии для сайта Cackle
Загрузка...

More news:

Lookout Landing

Read on Sportsweek.org:

Azcentral.com: Arizona Diamondbacks
Mets Merized Online

Other sports

Sponsored