“Witch! Witch!” the townspeople of Salem
Massachusetts once cried. Searching for people
that were doing out of the ordinary things, then taking them to court. Where an accusation, even suspicion meant
guilt. We like to think those days have
long passed, but if you take a look at the Baseball Hall of Fame ballots, you
see the same situation developing with the eligible players.
The
Baseball Hall of Fame is defined by the players kept out, but up until recently
the main debate over whether or not a player belongs in the Hall of Fame was on
the field performance. Now the voters
must take into account the possibility of the use of performance enhancing
drugs with every player that played from 1990 to the present. As more and more players are discovered as
having done steroids, the picture gets cloudier for the entire generation of
players. Because no steroid testing was
done until 2003, there is no way of knowing which players have done steroids
and which players have not. This puts the
voters for the Hall of Fame in an interesting predicament. Many of the old school voters have chosen to
not vote for any of the players of the era, while other voters have decided to
do a case by case basis. But do the
steroid users belong in the Hall of Fame?
The
answer is yes. Simply put, we just don’t
know who has used performance enhancing drugs and who hasn’t. That being the case, we cannot prevent
deserving players out of the Hall of Fame based on suspicion of use. Even for the players who have been found to
be using steroids, or who have admitted to steroid use, they too deserve a
place in the Hall of Fame. Players such
as Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez played in an era where using steroids didn’t
even go against the laws of the game. If
a player used a substance that was well within the legal boundaries of baseball
at the time, why should that player be punished for it; in fact, shouldn’t a
player be punished for not taking every measure possible to become the best
baseball player he could be? If a
businessman had the opportunity to be earning and performing at levels far and
above that of a normal businessman, would he not be admonished or fired for not
taking that opportunity? The fact of the
matter is that the steroid culture in baseball in the ‘90s and early 2000’s was
far larger than anybody first imagined.
According
to players from the era, such as Curt Schilling, it seems that over 50% of the
players used performance enhancing drugs.
If that figure is correct, and the players would be the best source for
that information, then the playing field was level as far as steroids are
concerned, and the players weren’t getting any advantage, if pitchers and
hitters both used steroids. Furthermore, both good players, like Mark McGwire,
and journeymen, like David Segui, used performance enhancing substances, so it
was common, and not just great players used them. It is also impossible to tell whether or not
a player used steroids if no tests were done, so feasibly, players from the
late ‘80s who are in the Hall of Fame already could have been using performance
enhancing drugs.
The
real damage from not letting anyone into the Hall of Fame from the era is the
damage done to players who have not done any performance enhancing drugs, but
are guilty by association. For example,
Jeff Bagwell was a fantastic first baseman with Houston. If Bagwell had played in any other era, he
would be a Hall of Famer, yet now he languished on the ballot. Bagwell, although never accused of steroid
use, has become guilty because of his fantastic numbers (a .297 batting average
and 449 home runs). Numbers should be
used to put a player in the Hall, not used as evidence to incriminate him. Also, what is sadder than a spot on the
timeline devoid of Hall of Famers, devoid of heroes. The same men who saved baseball with their
home runs are now paying the price of not being remembered by the sport they
loved. So unless players are allowed
into the Hall of Fame, more and more players will fall victim to the modern
witch hunt.
