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Leamington Letters #36: baseball on steroids

4/12/2012

14 Comments

 
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Williams and Ruth: who will join them in the Hall of Fame?
This year is the first time I have been eligible to vote in the IBWAA Hall of Fame ballot. 

I have until the end of the year to make my choices and I will need that time, because I will take seriously the exhortation that “voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played”.

I intend to give each candidate due consideration. Actually, that’s not true. I already know that I will not be voting for Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Mike Piazza or Sammy Sosa.

These guys were legends when my obsession with baseball began. To a large extent, they were responsible for my obsession with baseball. Especially Roger Clemens, who has won more Cy Young awards than any other pitcher (many of them in the uniform of my beloved Sox) and Bonds with his almost super-human numbers.

But.

It is pretty clear that they cheated me. They cheated their team-mates. They cheated the fans.

Most importantly, in my view, they cheated the game.

There is an argument, which is held by friends and baseball gurus whose opinions demand respect, that the taking of performance-enhancing drugs was so widespread that it should be discounted. There are some who believe that, as these drugs were not, at the time, banned by MLB, no illegal acts were committed. And there are others who will attempt to identify how good a player would have been had he not taken the drugs. Would have Bonds still hit 73 HRs in a season? Or merely 70? Or 65?

The point, or my point anyway, is that the numbers are only one element in the assessment. I want to major on integrity, sportsmanship, character as well. And regardless of what was or was not banned by MLB at the time, the underhand ways in which these drugs were used is pretty conclusive proof that those concerned knew that what they were up to was wrong.

Shoeless Joe (.356 lifetime!) is not in the Hall of Fame. Nor is Pete Rose, who had more hits than anyone else ever.

But the Babe is, and Ted Williams is, and Jackie Robinson is, and Willie Mays is.

I’m not saying that the Hall of Fame is inhabited only by the purest of the pure. I’m saying that there are precedents for refusing entry to those who have brought the game into disrepute, whether by gambling, taking bribes, or ingesting performance enhancing drugs.

As a sinner myself, I believe these activities are inimical to the game. They are  – sorry about this, America, “just not cricket”.

PS. I would welcome the help of anyone with a case to make for (almost) any candidate, especially others in the UK and Europe, who have no voice. 

Today's listening: the Dead, Winterland, October 1969, and wryly wondering how many (or rather, how few) would have made it to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame if we applied the same criteria ...

14 Comments
Sean
4/12/2012 07:21:41

I shall have a good look. Totally agree with your assertion. Those guys (even if it wasn't illegal within baseball at the time) knew full well what they were doing. They should get nowhere near the HoF.

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Max
5/12/2012 00:15:58

Thanks Sean. I'm thinking particularly of Schilling. First time on the ballot, but 04 and the bloodied sock is mega: integrity, commitment, contribution to the team etc. Shame about his politics!

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Sean
5/12/2012 02:44:03

My first thought was for Schilling. But as I am nowhere near your level of knowledge I thought I was just being Red Sox-leaning. I shall bow to your expertise. The guy is legend. Over 200 career wins, six-time All-Star, three World Series, Clemente, Rickey and Gehrig awards. Hard to look further, even if it is his first ballot appearance. (Agree about his politics)

Bob
5/12/2012 00:48:30

You could not have caught me in a better place to review one of your usual great articles, this time on Bonds and others of his ilk. Here I am in San Jose, 60 miles south of those fabulous Giants ( and their poor cousins, the 49ers ). What did I see this afternoon but part of one of the Giant's play-off games. They are probably aired everyday here on some station.
Congratulations on the eligibility to vote in the IBWAA Hall of Fame, and also on your article. I couldn't agree more with your opinion----Those players are such a depressing reflection on such a great game so evident in this year's play-offs and world series.
Why were such obviously gifted so willing to take the chance of destroying their great ability, and the game they loved for a cheating edge over their competition ? Just like the greed of Wall Street---.
Maybe there should be two Halls of Fame----those who used drugs and those who didn't----keep the cheaters in constant eyes of the public.

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Max
5/12/2012 03:14:38

A hall of fame and a hall of shame? The infamous asterisk does this - although on the ballot form they put asterisks next to first-timers. When I saw it, I was thinking there was doubt over almost everyone!

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CJ
5/12/2012 03:03:37

I'm afraid I know nothing about baseball or its Hall of Fame. But I'm pretty sure that practices which would disqualify one from the baseball hall would be mandatory in the rock 'n' roll hall of fame. Wasn't Jerry a big Giants fan? They did a dead memorial gig at the stadium earlier this summer I think.

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Max
5/12/2012 03:11:22

You're right! Dead night on Jerry's birthday. Phil and Weir sang the national anthem and Mickey Hart did something for the 7th inning stretch. Hey, no wonder they won the Series.

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Rick Hough
13/12/2012 22:04:11

As always, a great insight within a great read. I'm greatly delighted a vote is to be put in trustworthy hands.

The PED issue has put us all in a giant auditorium, peering down at a dish in the middle of the stage, trying to figure out how an egg is to be unscrambled, while attendant, lesser conundrums swirl about and obscure the view.

For instance:
•Willy Stargel’s amphetamine-bomb “Red Juice” was less performance-enhancing than inject-able Dianabol . . . or more?
•If the most common reason for steroid/HGH-style PED use is recovery from repetitive stress injury, is the Brian Duabach-ian “Look at me, I’m not jacked-You think I’m using?” just more malarkey?
•When Johnny Damon, while still the player rep with the Sox, enjoined a jaw-droppingly candid, page two Sunday sports section interview about amphetamine use in MLB, there was almost zero response anywhere. Did we dream this sequence?

We view steroid-type infractions as being most egregious because, while wolfing a couple of greenies may seem only a click or two away from chugging a can of Red Bull, administering a daily cocktail of inject-able and oral recovery-and-strength enhancers requires a precise understanding of how one regulates the dosage up and down from the middle of a six week cycle and how to do so without engendering some kind of gaudy cyst. Then of course, one has to be ready to lift a preposterous amount of weight, much of it long after there was any fun to be had doing it.

In other words, this is a very complicated, premeditated decision to cheat. This isn’t Pete Rose’s gambling degeneracy or Ty Cobb being an abject lout who could’ve strode the decks with Edward Teach; this actually feels weirdly akin to Bob Rubin and the boys, snookering the SEC to bend the regulations and let Goldman Sachs re-jigger the value of flimflam investment schemes.

Because it’s all about accepting a markedly devalued culture.

Part of me says, heck – let ‘em all in the Hall. Choose a point of demarcation, erect a curtain and place a sign explaining that on the other side, nobody knows who was and who w’aren’t but maybe most of them were, and that somewhere the Game collectively decided integrity was not so important. Note as well that sometime after 2012 the use of PED’s began to decline as players became leery of being nailed by yet-undeveloped testing strategies.

Otherwise, Manny and David mightn’t go in either.



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Max
27/12/2012 00:24:23

I understand the view, which is shared by your namesake below, that it happened, it was part of our history, and the Hall is a museum and should reflect it. But can't bring myself to vote that way. Definitely going for Schilling. Have a couple of more days to decide on a second.

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Rick Hough
27/12/2012 20:47:49

In truth, I believe none of the guilty parties should go in and I include those whose guilt is presumed rather than admitted or discovered. Keeping them all out is perhaps the best cure for the malaise, which will otherwise go unchecked for as long as there are chemists and cash.
And a thousand times "yes" to Schilling.

Rick
25/12/2012 08:22:14

I disagree! I think such judgments and rewards should honour achievement. Achievement within the law of course.
Want to say more but it cuts out longer entries!
Happy Xmas to you both.
Rick

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Max
27/12/2012 00:33:49

Remember a conversation re Bonds some years ago and was thinking about it when I mentioned opinions which deserve respect. But can't bring myself to vote for him. See above. Can't make the Tottenham game but Jill and I will be in town soon with time to talk. Will call. Love to B. xxx

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Rick
27/12/2012 15:19:27

Much more to be said and soon. Angelus?
Baseball? Traditionally run by robber barons and racists. Now they talk about role models... Makes me feel crazy. Gimme Pete Rose any day compared to some of those pigs.
Heppy New Year already,
Rick xx

Max
8/1/2013 06:31:32

So. In the end, I voted only for Curt Schilling, Tim Raines and Alan Trammell.

None of whom reached the magic 75%.

But Piazza did. With 79.1%.

Biggio got 64.18%, Clemens 52.24%. Bagwell 50.75% and Bonds 50.75%.

Disappointing.

Especially as my votes went to guys who were clean of PEDs, but the highest was Raines at 49.25%.

OK, he was tested positive for coke. But this is not serial and serious steroid abuse.

Alan Trammel, whom I admire immensely, received merely 29.85%.

And Schilling? 28.36%.

I understand that we're talking first-time-on-the-ballot guys.

But Schilling, at the very least, should have been a first-time shoo-in.

We are, at the IBWAA, only the digital alternative to the guys who wield the power for the HoF. But I'm profoundly disappointed in these results.

No Schilling. But Piazza?

I tried very hard not to be Sox-centric. Maybe the Yankees in the IBWAA applied different criteria.

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     Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father. and grandfather. Resident in Warwick, England.

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