Joe Morgan is serious about baseball’s standards of excellence.
The Cincinnati Reds legend and baseball Hall of Famer wrote a letter to the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Monday in which he implored Hall of Fame voters not to induct known steroid users into the sport’s most hallowed place. Esteemed baseball writer Joe Posnanski shared Morgan’s letter on his blog, and the Baseball Hall of Fame sent it to a wider audience.
Here is the Joe Morgan letter, distributed by the Hall of Fame. pic.twitter.com/Ygcp4EFGkf
— Ryan Fagan (@ryanfagan) November 21, 2017
“We hope the day never comes when known steroid users are voted into the Hall of Fame,” Morgan writes on behalf of himself and other Hall of Famers, whom he declined to identify. “They cheated. Steroid users don’t belong here.
“Players who failed drug tests, admitted using steroids, or were identified as users in Major League Baseball’s investigation into steroid abuse, known as the Mitchell Report, should not get in. Those are the three criteria that many of the players and I think are right.”
Morgan emphasizes the deliberate nature of steroid use makes players’ cheating so abhorrent and threatens he and other Hall of Famers will no longer attend induction ceremonies in Cooperstown, N.Y., if steroid users are admitted into the Hall.
“If steroid users get in, it will divide and diminish the Hall, something we couldn’t bear,” Morgan writes.
The Baseball Writers’ Association of America announced its annual Hall of Fame ballot Monday, and the 2018 list includes the likes of Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and others who either admitted or were accused of steroid use during their playing days.
The Baseball Writers’ Association of America has been reluctant to vote for those tainted by steroid-use allegations in recent years, and Morgan hopes to keep their mindset as is.
