BONDS, McGWIRE, SOSA, CLEMENS
MERIT ELECTION TO THE HALL
AT COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.

Orioles’ Rafael Palmeiro will never get my vote
 
By David Maril
 
One of the perks of covering major league baseball for too many years to mention is being given the lifetime honor of voting each winter in the Hall of Fame elections.

I’ve received a ballot since the late 1990s and for most of those years many people I talk to are curious about how I vote when it comes to Pete Rose.

To me, it’s a simple issue.

Rose is banned from baseball because of gambling and is not on the official ballot. If at some point the ban is lifted and he survives the screening process to be placed on the ballot, I will vote for him.

On the field, Rose was a hustling, hard-nosed modern-day Ty Cobb, holding an impressive number of baseball records. But as long as he’s banned from baseball and not on the ballot, I am unable to vote for him.

In the last year or so, the Hall of Fame voting controversy has shifted away from Rose to former superstars Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Roger Clemens. Allegations that they used banned performance enhancers swirl around their names.

For the Class of 2013, none of them came close to receiving votes on the required 75 percent or more of the 569 ballots cast. McGwire had been eligible for seven years while Clemens, Sosa and Bonds were on the ballot for the first time.

ALL FOUR RECEIVED MARIL’S VOTE

All four received my vote last year and a few weeks ago I checked their names for 2014. However, when the results for this summer’s induction class are announced on Jan. 8th, they will all probably fall short again.

There’s no question the four measure up to the voting guidelines of considering their record, playing ability and contributions to the team/s on which they played.

Bonds, a seven-time National League MVP, is baseball’s all-time career and season home run leader with 762, and 73 round-trippers, respectively. He’s a 14-time All-Star, won eight Gold Gloves in the outfield, stole 514 bases and finished with 2,986 hits.

Clemens, the third all-time leader in strikeouts, is the only seven-time Cy Young Award winner in baseball history and owns an amazing career 354-184 won-lost record with a 3.12 ERA.

McGwire hit 70 homers in 1998, was a 12-time All-Star, is seventh on the all-time career home run list and was a good enough first baseman to win a Gold Glove at the position.

Sosa, a seven-time All-Star outfielder, won an NL MVP award, ranks eighth on the all-time home run list with 609 four-baggers, and three times hit more than 60 in a season.

The issue with baseball-writer voters is the ballot statement that says we should also consider “integrity, sportsmanship and character.”

Well, I have an issue with that issue.

NOT QUALIFIED TO JUDGE SHORTCOMINGS OF ATHLETES AS PEOPLE

First of all, I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about evaluating baseball players in major league competition. I am not, however, a trained investigator or detective and do not consider myself qualified to judge and weigh the shortcomings and merits of these athletes as people.

If a qualified investigative group or committee finds any are guilty of using banned performance enhancers or violating other sacred rules of the game, then they should be kicked out of baseball and not make it through the Hall of Fame ballot screening process.

However, if the Hall of Fame committee and Major League Baseball have refrained from declaring them ineligible for Cooperstown consideration, they have my vote because of their accomplishments on the field.

It’s quite humorous listening to some of the comments from baseball writers who refuse to vote for McGwire, Clemens, Bonds and Sosa. They mention character and conduct detrimental to the game.

But who are they kidding? Do they actually believe that such standards have been consistently applied over the years?

It’s obvious the Hall of Fame is filled with plenty of highly competitive former players who bent the rules to excel. For example, the use of amphetamines was prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s.

The shrine includes plenty of former players who were racists, boozers and cheaters. If you put all the Hall of Famers under a microscope and examined their lives closely, how many would pass the character test?

Each election, qualifying sportswriters are allowed to vote for up to 10 players. Besides votes for Bonds, Clemens, McGwire and Sosa, this year I also selected catcher-second baseman Craig Biggio, former Orioles pitcher Mike Mussina, pitcher Tom Glavine, pitcher Greg Maddux, catcher Mike Piazza, and shortstop Alan Trammell.

Glavine and Maddux are certain first-time-ballot winners.

But I didn’t vote for former Oriole Rafael Palmeiro.

Palmeiro had a long and decent statistical career, with 569 home runs and 3,020 hits. But because he was a first baseman, I hold him to high power and run-production standards. He must be compared against the other top players of his position during his career. The fact that in 20 seasons he was on just four All-Star teams, which are picked not only by fans but also by managers and coaches, shows he was not considered one of the game’s elite players.

This was the eighth straight time I have voted for McGwire, who finished 15th in the voting last year, picked on only 16.9 percent of the ballots. I strongly believe the former A’s and Cardinals slugger has been somewhat demonized and not gotten a fair break in media coverage.

And what exactly is jeopardizing his chances?

McGwire still receives heavy criticism for his refusal to answer questions about use of steroids in baseball, at a televised Congressional hearing in 2005.

As far as the Congressional hearings go, McGwire had a right not to answer the questions of the grandstanding committee full of politicians trying to get free TV airtime. With the war in Iraq, threats of terrorism, high oil prices and other pressing domestic issues at the time, a Congressional hearing on baseball steroid use seemed impossible to take seriously.

McGwire’s initial statement at the hearings makes one think of the “witch-hunting” that was done during the Sen. Joseph McCarthy hearings in the 1950s when pressure was put on Hollywood directors and actors to turn in their colleagues who were members of the Communist Party.

“Asking me or any other player to answer questions about who took steroids, in front of television cameras, will not solve the problem,” McGwire said. “If a player answers ‘No,’ he simply will not be believed; if he answers ‘Yes,’ he risks public scorn and endless government investigations.”

Although the 2013 Congress, winding down a year of inaction, has been labeled the “biggest do-nothing Congress in our history,” at least it can be said that it didn’t waste time investigating Major League Baseball.
 
davidmaril@hermanmaril.com
 
“Inside Pitch” is a weekly opinion column written for Voice of Baltimore by David Maril.

CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S “INSIDE PITCH” COLUMN:  click here
…and read previous Dave Maril columns  by clicking here.