As former MVP Andre Dawson, World Series-winning manager Whitey Herzog and ESPN (and San Francisco Giants) broadcaster Jon Miller gave their induction speeches, baseball fans everywhere could be proud of one thing — these guys resemble everything that America’s pastime should be.
The notion that a Hall of Famer wouldn’t exemplify the class and dignity of the sport became mainstream when Pete Rose was caught betting on baseball. But in recent years, Rose has become just one of many baseball "greats" whose Hall of Fame status will always be uncertain.
The steroid era in baseball not only changed the game on the field; it changed the way fans, writers and historians will view the game for the rest of time.
Alex Rodriguez is one of those players whose stats are worthy of permanent enshrinement in Cooperstown, but the turmoil surrounding his career may create an embellishment on his resume that Hall of Fame voters will never forgive.
Rodriguez, whose 599 home runs leave him on the cusp of becoming just the seventh player in big league history to hit 600, admitted in a 2009 interview that he took performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) during the early-2000s.
A-Rod could end up hitting 800 homers, but the fact that he took steroids, along with his well-known feuds with fan and media favorites Derek Jeter and Joe Torre, might leave Rodriguez on the outside looking in when it comes to the Hall of Fame.
Rodriguez’s quest for the coveted 600 home run club — which, by the way, contains three players (Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Ken Griffey Jr.) who made their bones during the steroid-era — simply enhances the long-standing debate as to whether or not factors other than performance on the baseball diamond should influence a player’s Hall of Fame credentials.
Unfortunately, it’s already been proven that it does.
It took 15 years — the full amount of time that the writers have to vote a player into the Hall — for former Red Sox slugger Jim Rice to be inducted. Rice was an eight-time All-Star and won the 1978 AL MVP Award, but was tortured by the writers because he was not exactly the most media-friendly guy in the clubhouse during his playing career.
And because Bud Selig has not set a precedent for steroid users like he did by banning Rose for gambling, it’s pretty clear that the voters are not going to give in to anyone suspected of being on the juice — for now.
Mark McGwire, whose 583 home runs rank him ninth all time, has still not been voted in since his initial eligibility in 2007. Rafael Palmeiro will be on the 2011 ballot, but because he tested positive for PEDs in 2005, will not likely receive enough support from the voters.
At some point, Selig and the writers need to let bygones be bygones and only focus on statistics — skewed or not — when determining Hall of Fame eligibility.
When it comes to A-Rod, there are a number of reasons why a baseball fan or writer might not like the guy, but the fact remains that he’s one of the greatest players of all-time.
Gaylord Perry was a well-known "spitballer." Ty Cobb has been cited for gambling, bad sportsmanship and even extreme racism. John McGraw is known to have masterminded several illegal gambling rings over the course of his career. All three are Hall of Famers. All three, like Rodriguez, Bonds, Palmeiro and McGwire, had exceptional stats on the field.
It’s been said that a baseball Hall of Famer should not only have excelled on the diamond, but should have made terrific contributions to the game itself. The reality, however, is that players are paid to play the game. Fans pay teams to watch players play the game, and they pay extra when that team has a really good player.
So when it comes to Hall of Fame voting, the writers need to remember that guys like A-Rod put people in the seats with their abundance of majestic home runs.
How they did it, what they do when they’re not doing it and what they say after they do it should have no bearing on a player’s Hall of Fame status.
Because when you look at a Hall of Fame player’s plaque in the museum, the first thing you read (after date of birth) is the guy’s statistics. And for A-Rod, statistics speak more to his career than anything else off the field.
