After spending the last six months or so sitting around waiting for his phone to ring, Sammy Sosa is finally ready to call it quits.
He'll walk away with quite a resume: 609 home runs (sixth all-time), three seasons with more than 60 home runs, seven All-Star appearances, one MVP award. Clearly, Hall of Fame numbers.
He'll also carry with him, however, the stigma of steroid abuse. None of it concrete or proven, mind you, but a large enough pile of circumstantial evidence to raise plenty of suspicions.
In comments made Wednesday to ESPN, Sosa was already engaged in a preemptive attack on anyone who would doubt his candidacy for Cooperstown.
"Everything I achieved, I did it thanks to my perseverance, which is why I never had any long, difficult moments [as a baseball player]. If you have a bad day in baseball, and start thinking about it, you will have ten more.
"I will calmly wait for my induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Don't I have the numbers to be inducted?"
It's an odd turn of phrase, and likely little more than bluster. Anyone who would "calmly" wait out such an honor would not feel the need to announce it to the world. Sammy Sosa is going on the offensive, while sounding quite defensive about it.
In a thoughtful column for the Chicago Sun-Times, Chris De Luca takes Sosa to task. He has some questions for Sosa that he'd like answered.
Why, De Luca asks, didn't Sosa meet with Sen. George Mitchell?
Why would Jose Canseco – who has been proven correct on a number of steroid issues – say that the physical changes in Sosa's body clearly point to use of performance-enhancers?
Why, given the chance to confront the allegations, would Sosa take a pass?
While Sosa is calmly waiting for his induction to the Hall of Fame -- he can expect some anxious moments -- he better either keep his mouth shut on the subject of steroids or be willing to take the allegations against him head-on.
So is Sosa a Hall of Famer? If it were solely up to the numbers, the question would be ridiculous. First ballot, no problem.
But as Mark McGwire has found out, it's not going to be that easy. When Sosa's name comes up on the ballot in five years, voters will be faced with these two questions:
1. Do you believe Sammy Sosa took performance-enhancing drugs?
2. Does it matter?
In the next five years, more information could come forth either damning or absolving Sosa on the first question. It's unlikely, but possible.
So it will probably come down to the second question. Does it matter? Keep in mind, voters are asked to consider character.
Voting — 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.
So far, based on the actions of Hall of Famer voters, it does indeed matter. Unless Sosa comes up with a good explanation, he would be advised to not sit and wait so calmly.
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I hope Sammy is joking when he says he will calmly wait for his induction. He should be inducted in the same class as McGwire and Palmiero in the year never.
If he is real lucky, his great-great grandchildren will make his acceptance speech.
He is another coward who snuck away from the game and refuses to address the obvious use of PED's.
I used to love these guys but they owe us and the game the truth before they get the highest honor.
Why is McGuire even mentioned as a HOF candidate? The only impressive numbers he has are HR's...take away the steriods and he doesn't have those. Sosa was a great all-around player during his tenure in the majors, but will be guilty of association regardless. If he is ever able to bring forth evidence of passing every steriod test he ever took, it will be assumed he was on HGH. Sosa was one of the players who got the American people back into baseball following the strike...sad how we can all jump on the bandwagon during the HR race, then turn so quickly after. If Sosa is not elected to the HOF because it is assumed that he took roid's, then I don't think any hitter from this era can be. Griffey Jr. in my opinion never took PED's, but the numbers he put up and the subsequent breakdown of his body...a case can be made. Sad, but this is what baseball has come to...
I had the opportunity to play against Sammy when he was in AAA Vancouver (White Sox) and this would have been like early 90's. (1991/2) and I will say that he sure grew a lot.. I saw so many of my peers gain some serious muscle mass between Sept and Feb around the late 80's and early 90's... Another interesting specimen/question is Ron Gant.. his numbers are not Sosa'esque but he was a guy who was a wiry/but strong guy in the minors with the Braves and then just got huge and started bashing balls.. I am NOT saying he juiced BUT it has me looking back at a 10 year career of pitching to a lot of of the accused in the minors (and a few in the majors) who are being questioned and i has me somewhat pissed off...
do you have some proof or you just talking bullsheet
Guess you think Bonds and Arod shouldnt get in also, huh? Or are you going to decide WHEN these players took the drugs? Love the hypocrasy when it comes to Bonds and Arod, that they didnt need them, so its OK
Sosa is no different than Bonds, McGwire, Palmiero, Clemens and the hundreds of others who have tested positive for steroids. They're a disgrace to the concept of honor and all the super athletes that preceeded them. If I were a descendant of Ruth or Maris, I'd be incensed and on the rampage to have the records stricken. The same any descendant of pitchers whose records Clemens broke should be. Hammerin' Hank should have the cajones to come out and tell MLB they have no business including Bonds' record of total home runs as well. The 'roid users are descipable, and the entire steroid era should be wiped from the record books.
Hundreds of others who have tested positive? Who? Get your facts straight.
more moral bankrupcy. thinks he deserves to be in the hall of fame. if bums like him get in the hall of fame, the hall of fame will become to mean nothing!
I say "man up" Sammy. You misled thousands of youngsters and you hurt the integrity of the game for decades. Shame on you and the others, caught or not. We all have a judgement day...my advice...admit and ask forgiveness from all the fans and families of prior players who didn't do it your way.
Induct Sosa and keep Rose and Shoeless Joe out? Give me a break!
exactly
Keep them all out. Rose, Shoeless Joe, Mcgwire, Bonds, Sosa, Clemens...
I agree accept on Shoeless Joe, for whom the stats during the Series in question clearly indicate that he did not play like a man trying to throw a game or a series. All that he did when you get down to it is take money to do something (which he did not do), and did so with a terrible intent that was not acted out.
Shoeless Joe's stats for the Series look good on paper. However, look at the picture of Jackson thrown out by a mile and a half attempting to steal second base. There are a lot of things that a player can do that do not show up in the box score that can affect the outcome of a ball game--throwing behind the runner, coming up slow on a ground single, not placing a hit behind the runner and so on. Did he do some subtle things to tip the games? Without replay, cannot tell. With Sosa, look at his picture the year he joined the Rangers and then again in the middle of his tenure with the Cubs--something happened while working with all of those juicers on the Rangers.
Rose is a bigger disgrace than all steroid users put together. There's one cardinal rule, written and unwritten, in baseball. Rose broke it. Then Rose took a deal he knew would ban him from the HOF. For life. Then instead of coming clean Rose lied for 20 years. Rose is out. There is no Rose.
Shoeless Joe, really, I could care less. I could be convinced that he was framed, I suppose. In which case he should be in. But he's been dead for, what, 100 years? S I doubt he cares either.
Find me a positive test for Sammy. Or an eyewitness account of him taking 'roids (a la Clemans or Pettitte). If you do, we can talk about keeping him out. Until then, he should absolutely be in.
if they let him in, it BETTER look like this!!!
*Sammy Sosa
If he did steriods he doesnt belong in the HOF, if he didn't, he sat by and was silent while others damaged the game. What bothers me as much as anything is that the "clean" players did nothing, and thought it would do them no harm. They thought, wrongly, that the game could be damaged without damanging them. What they are finding out now is that all played under a cloud of suspiciion. The "clean" players could have forced baseball into testing 10-15 years earlier than it did, it was their union and their player reps that faught against it. So in my mind no one gets the benefit of the doubt, no innocent until provent guilty, they all are bums.
You should see my new glass house. But first I must stone you.
Who in there right minds WOULD support big steroid use? Let me remind you though that IF Sammy did do them (and thats a big if. Burden of truth can never be negatively proven..."prove you didn't do them" is contrary to everything we believe) then he was also in an era of HOF candidates in which that is unfortunately part of the game he played. Pitchers were juicing...other players were juicing...it was part of the era. should big Mac be there too? Absolutely. Will I always hold a player lie Andre Dawson (who should be in the hall and its a sin that he isn't) in higher esteem? You bet. As long as baseball lasts people will argue about numbers, just like they argue about Babe Ruth being fueled on beer and hotdogs. You dont see them forgetting that. They will remember that the 90's hitters where juiced. Willie Mays and Hank both tell stories about the amphetimenes they would take to get them through day games or road trip games. Don't see anyone decrying those.
In my opinion, the Hall has gotten too full of itself anyway. Pete Rose is still out, Big Mac may never make it in (in spite of being one of the most feared hitters in his era), and they have choked on people like Dawson, Gossage, and others.
In / not in... does it really matter to anyone, really? Those who know the history, know the history. Those who don't, it is just a name on a wall, or not. Asterisk or no asterisk. Everyone in this period will be tainted.
The motivation was to get an edge so they could demand more money. They have made the money. The HOF is just ego. As for "damage" to the "game"... well, it is just a game. It's entertainment... like reality TV, movies, FOX news. Nobody takes those seriously. Something to put on to go with the beer and snacks, a nice way to hang with friends, a reason to buy the 60" LCD.
They should actually have a MONSTER BASEBALL league...enhance performance all you want, cork the bat in any way you see fit, grease the ball in any way you can. Kind of like 12 meter yacht racing...anything goes as long as you conform to the 12 meter water line.
Now that would be fun!
you know it is amazing to me how foolish some people are if you accuse clemens and sosa for being on steroids and the plethora of others then who had the advantage the pitcher who kept winning or the batter who kept hitting.....and while your at it ...steroids didn't just spring up overnight...ithasbeen around a longtime....should we include nolan ryan on that list....please rember after a very long career,shortly after retiring had heart problems ...so most of you guys get over your righteous selfs....and stop judging what you don't truly understand.....baseball as in most sports has always been about getting that edge....
If you had #9 in the "first remotely reasonable comment in this thread" pool, congrats!!
The Hall of Fame is a shrine for worshipping worldly accomplishment. Those who know and love the game appreciate players who didn't make the Hall of Fame but who behaved like gentlemen, respected the fans, and understood how fortunate they were to do for a living what most baseball lovers only fantasize about. Let the steroid monster men get their worldly due. As a society, we promote success above integrity, we learn to cheat to get an edge in all facets, business and politics are often about lying and stealing your way to money and power. Only God knows what is truly in the hearts of men.
Here we are judging a man that has some numbers, but has a KNOWN corked bat and a lot of fans angry with 'roids in his life. The problem we have is that we cannot accept him not admitting to the use, but if he - really - didn't do roids he mind as well have. I don't see him making the list; but I never thought I see a mixed PotUS in my life time.
Fun fact. It's been proven numerous times that corking your bat actually decreases your power potential. It does speed up your bat slightly because of the small drop in weight, but also causes the bat to absorb more of the blow from the ball/swing and thus doesn't transfer as much energy into the ball. It's actually a significant difference when you do cork your bat, just the opposite of what players think. The balls velocity off a corked bat with the same torque put into the swing (faster swing with corked bat from that torque) and speed of pitch hitting the same spot on the bat is much less than without corking.
So while it is officially against the rules, it actually hurts the hitters ability to sting the ball. One of numerous things that players have wrong about the game. :-)
And also for the record (addressing the Nolan Ryan comment above). Nolan Ryan has gone on record as saying "If steroids were around when I played, I would have taken them". He further explained because you want to do the best you can and it's so intense out there that you're willing to sacrfice your body to do it.
Baseball is a game of cheating and we even have cheaters who got to the Hall of Fame pretty much just because they cheated *looks at Gaylord Perry* Heck, for a while there it was even considered cheating to throw a curve-ball or any other pitch that wasn't a straight fastball right down the middle.
Other such common cheating that goes on, if a player is on base with less than two outs, it's against the rules to block his view of a fly ball and thus his ability to tag and take the extra base. However, particularly with third base, every third basemen will try their best to block the players view despite the rule. They want the runner to leave early or not be able to judge it right. This is cheating, but in Baseball cheating has always been considered ok if you can get away with it and Gaylord is admired for his ability to hide the fact that he doctored baseballs all the time yet almost never get caught. Even he jokes that he got to the hall of fame thanks to Vaseline, emery boards, and other such things.
So while Steroids do need to be run out of the game for health reasons and because we don't want our kids thinking they need to do that to play, beyond that if a player could take some steroid with 0 negative health effects, should it be legal? It wouldn't be because it's a steroid, but beyond that it wouldn't make sense not to make it legal as players take a rediculous amount of varying substances to help them in their workouts all the time.
If it's legal, they want to take it to increase their play (it's the same in every sport). Right or wrong that's the way it always will be. I don't think vilifying any individual player does any good. If you want to keep him out of the HOF, that's fine. But realize that the vast majority of the players in the HOF having been given the opportunity, probably would have taken the steroids just like the players recently. Especially since it wasn't against the rules until recently. And if we are just worried about keeping an even playing field as far as players stats in the past vs today, then that's not really possible. It wasn't very long ago that it was considered bad to work out as they thought it made you a worse baseball player. Players now have a HUGE advantage over players in the past because of that and medical advancements. 100 years from now, we will probably be talking about players who routinely have 40 year careers and have ways of enhancing their bodies legally that we never dreamed of.
As far as the corked bat actually hurting the hitter and not helping, no one ever accused Sosa of being smart. :-)
Interesting idea that corked bats actually decrease the batters effectiveness. That's a new one to me. I don't like the steroid use and the taint on the steroid era, but if Babe Ruth were playing during this era, he would have taken them. I read a news article one time in the Long Beach Press-Telegram about an old trainer for the California Angels who had roomed with Ruth. This was while Reggie Jackson was playing for them, in the twilight of his career.
The trainer one day brought in a bat to show the players that he said had been one of Ruth's. Reggie took it to look it over, and suddenly began laughing, saying "This bat's corked!" And according to the reporter, sure enough you could see the plug in the end of the barrel.
Check the Mythbusters website. They actually did tests on the corked bat theory. They found out , as stated earlier, the bat absorbs more of the power so the ball does not go as far. As they say "busted".
hype22
It wasn't always about getting that edge unless you really believe beer and hot dogs gave "Babe" an edge. To me this was a lot like the housing bubble- for some reason people thought home prices could just keep going up and up and baseball fans and players thought guys could hit more and more home runs- both turned out to have limits that some people got aroung by cheating. In baseball- expansion teams diluted the quality of pitching which accounted for some home runs but look at the bodies of Bonds, McGuire, Sosa- how they changed over the years and even got stronger at an age when most guys production should have dropped off- it's cheating whether baseball had a law against steroids or not.
The government removed the law against things like derivitives- doesn't make it any less like stealing than it was.
If the only baseball player in pre-"steroid era" history were Babe Ruth, that comment would make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, there have been quite a few others, many of whom have cheated. And I'm quite sure that if there was something around back then that would let him "get that edge" without working too hard for it, Babe woulda' done it too.
But he didn't.
Way to miss the point.
I played ball, never stuck a needle in my ass, never went anywhere!
I'm with Buffy and Elliot on this one... in or not in, won't really affect much. Everyone from this era of baseball is under a cloud of suspicion.
Beyond that, I think there is blame to go all the way around over the PED issue in baseball, from the front offices that knew and did nothing, to the Office of the Commissioner that should have known, to even the fans who prize the long-ball over everything else in the game. The hype when McGuire and Sosa were chasing the record was huge! It was like the real-estate bubble, you knew it had a wiff of phoniness to it, but a lot of people bought in anyway.
Sammy Sosa absoutely deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. He has the numbers and is a perfect role for youngsters to model themselves after. He worked hard, was successful and a perfect gentleman. He deserves to get in the HOF in five years. There is no reason why should he should be made to discuss matters that do not pertain to him? There arejust too many people in this world that cannot appreciate it a hardworking athelete working out day after day to improve themselves. That is what Sammy did. He did not do steroids and that is why is no discussing it. There is no discussion. We will be looking forward to to your induction into the HOF in five years.
unless everyone was tested, and those names released.. this is moot issue.
while some players are crucified and other, equally guilty, player's names are being protected makes this whole issue one of mock hysteria and over the top hypocrisy. Baseball, and it's writers, KNEW all along about this... we ALL did... for anyone to play victim and cry foul now is beyond stupid. We liked homeruns, we all helped in creating this enviorment, we cheered Sosa and the rest on... so we need to get over this phoney outrage, grow up and move on.
I don't blame any player for looking for an edge, especially when at the time, that edge wasn't even outlawed yet. We boo the crap out these guys when they fail, endlessly calling them every name in the book... and yet we expect these players to be less than human because they make a lot of money?
America: the land of hypocrisy.
God bless us!
Taking that a step further, there are hundreds if not thousands of players that were never and will never be caught. Sportswriters cannot pretend to be detectives and they can't act on suspicion. There are plenty of suspicious characters in baseball that may not have juiced. The point here is that we can't and shouldn't pick and choose who should be in the Hall based on our suspicions, hearsay etc. It's all a silly exercise in futility. Elect all who deserve the hall into the hall and put an asterisk next to the whole era.
I really don't care that Clemens, Palmeiro and Arod lied. There have been MUCH worse people in baseball that sit in the hall of fame. Bob Feller was a self-proclaimed, self-righteous racist. Ty Cobb is one of the most celebrated players ever. He was also a racist, fighter, cleat-sharpener and all around bad person. He would make John Rocker look like an altar boy. Guess what, he was also a great ball player and he deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. (Not Rocker of course, he sucked).
The same goes for the guys above. Put them in the hall and lets hopefully put the Steroid Era behind us.
Being a racist is not cheating and it doesn't help you hit 72 tape measure homers.
Irrelevant. As stated in the article: "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."
Being a racist is a serious character flaw. Ty Cobb basically was one of the worst human beings to play the game and he got a pass. A guy who is guilty of lying should get the same. Cobb cheated by sharpening his cleats. So did other athletes during that time. They got a pass. Hall of Fame pitchers scuffed baseballs to get an edge. Again, he got a free pass, what makes the steroid users different?
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.
Being a racist who sharpens his spikes doesn't quite seem to fit the guidelines provided HOF voters, does it?
I hope I never, in my lifetime or my kids lifetimes, hope I see any of these cheaters make it to the Hall. They took the easy road to success unlike Hank, Mickey, the Babe and others. How can you keep Pete and Shoeless out and admit any of these clowns. MLB deserves the pickle they are now in. They have a no backbone Commish and owners who are not there for the game, only the money.
You're offering no solutions. We live in a country where people are innocent until proven guilty. There are plenty of suspicious baseball players that have not been caught taking steroids. (Big Papi, Sammy Sosa, Adrien Beltre, to name a few). Assuming they have the numbers should we deny them from the hall based on our suspicions? What about the players that have been accused but have not actually been caught? (Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire). What about the Athletes that have admitted it?! (Petite) Or have admitted it after denying it? (Arod). What about Pujols? He hasn't been caught or accused. Meanwhile, he hails from the Domincan Republic and basically every big swinging bat from his country has been caught or accused, (Manny, Papi, Arod, Tejada, Sosa) are we to assume that he is clean? BS. The bottom line is, we can't single out people because we would be leaving out a lot of them.
Remember, the HOF voters have to consider "character" when voting. The fact that Sosa was caught using a corked bat and the fact that he suddenly forgot how to speak and understand English at the congressional hearings should tell you all you need to know.
Yes, because one corked bat and clamming up as a non-native speaker at an intimidating governmental hearing ought to eliminate someone from Hall consideration. But...racist? Wife-beater? Reputed murderer? All-around, life-long scumbag? Come on in!
Voters are ASKED, by the rules, to consider character. They never, ever do, except in a good way (like with Puckett).
Again Cap, if character was a big deal, why is Ty Cobb in the hall of fame? How about Bob Feller?
A man of Ty Cobb's charactor today wouln't make the Hall of Fame. Few clubs would have him on their roster. But he wasn't elected by the HOF voters of today. He was elected by the HOF voters of his day, when much of his attitude was the norm. And somehow, that to me seems fair. He was judged by his peers to be one of the greatest. What doesn't seem fair is that those same voters of his day could put him in and exclude Shoeless Joe. Or any of the great black athletes of the old Negro Leagues. Or that baseball's all time hits leader should be excluded when no proof, nor to my knowledge, no evidence has ever surfaced that says that Pete Rose ever bet against his own team. Nor to my knowledge has it ever been even alleged that he ever tried to throw a game.
It's good that today's voters have moved to rectify some of the injustices done to the men of the Negro Leagues by putting their greatest players in the Hall where they should rightly be enshrined, but at the same time men such as Cobb who were elected by those of their day who saw them in their greatness shouldn't be thrown out by the judgements of a different era. Or should atletes who use intimidation to psyche out their opposition be excluded in a modern pc world of athletics?
Ty Cobb used to sharpen his spikes, the spitball used to be legal, and the beanball was a part of baseball, all in a differnt age. But steroids are a thing of this age, and the consensus of today is that they should not be legal, and they aren't. Let the cheaters beware, and pay the price when caught. I want to see athletes striving to achieve their natural best; not surpassing all others with unnatural aids.
I say, since steroids have been deemed "Performance Enhancing Drugs", that every pro athlete should be required to take them. This will do 2 things:
1) It will enhance their performance and make me the fan more entertained. I mean come on, don't we all want to be more entertained as fans who dump billions of dollars a year into the sports business?
2) It will level the playing field. That way no one can claim that so-and-so had an unfair advantage. It will also obviate the need for the pesky asterisk when it come to records.
Ok, yes, the notion is absurd. But, so is the notion that there are not people and labs out there right now developing the next generation of undetectable drug that will give the kids in high school now the "edge" they are looking for to make it to the Bigs. You and I both know it's true. Gone are the days where sports figures are "role-models".
Look at it this way, most people in order to make it through the work day, consume large quantities of caffein. They have families to take care of and know that some hotshot college grad will accept much less to do the same job.
These guys have only baseball to rely on. There is always some hotshot teenager who can run faster, throw harder, and recover quickly and would do the job much cheaper. Of course, they would need an edge.
The owners wanted to make more money, the fans wanted entertainment, and now they complain about the game being tainted. Give me a break. People love watching the long ball. Barry Bonds' "retirement" has cost the small paddle boat salesman a small fortune. No one is out there waiting for one of those spectacular bombs to hit the water.
At the end of the day, does it really matter? Does someone getting into the hall improve your life in any way? Also give these guys some credit, how many of all those steroid users hit over 600 homeruns or strike out over 300 hitters? Do you even know the benefit of steroids? If you took one of those couch potatoes and stuck him with a gallon of the stuff, do you really think that he could put up numbers like that? Didn't think so.
See, you bring up the exact point that is so disappointing about these athletes that feel they have to cheat to win. You're right in the fact that if you pump up the regular "joe couch potato" with steroids, it most likely will not make him able to run a sub-4 second 40 or jack a 100mph fastball over the Green Monster. But, these athletes already have the God-given physical gifts of power, timing, speed, etc.....why mess it up by trying to build on that talent through immoral and unnatural methods? It's a sad fact that people get all excited to see these athletes overpower their opponents....they play as if they are "men among boys" and if they play in a city that worships stats over sportsmanship, the pressure to build on and extend their physical dominance drives these athletes to put chemicals in their bodies that may shorten their lives by years, even decades. It's the money these sports teams throw at successful athletes and the hero-worship these men and women crave that makes them do this to themselves.
And, sadly, you are right in saying we as fans are partly responsible for requiring these athletes to be "superhuman". But, isn't it just as "entertaining" to watch 10-12 y/o children play ball in Little League? These kids play for the love of the game! And our past sports heroes played just as passionately in their prime. Unfortunately, gone are the days where winning isn't everything and sportsmanship was as important as the number of home runs hit in a season!
My contention is this...if we insist that steroid use in sports should be viewed as just athletes trying to get an edge over the competion by any means necessary, then we should just close the book on alltime sports records and start another whole record book. We can call this one "Steroid Era" sports records. This way, there will be no comparing Barry Bonds to Hank Aaron. There is no comparison, it'll be like comparing apples to oranges. We can rest assured that our past sports heroes keep their hard-earned records intact, and we can continue to shell out $100.00 a ticket to see the pumped up steroid-heads put baseballs into orbit, just for our entertainment.
Sammy's a cheating d-bag, I hope he never, ever gets in the HOF.
It is laughable for people to reach all the way back to the 1920's to assert that those players didn't seek an edge because they just drank beer. BS. Sure some drank beer and of course that did not give them an edge. A+B doesn't = L. The fact that beer doesn't improve athletic performance (except bowling) does not mean no players were seeking an edge. Some players in every era stretched the rules. When there was only one umpire John McGraw (HoF) would grab the belt of base runners at third. Pitchers have thrown illegal pitches (curves & spitballs). When amphetamines became available nearly every player took them to overcome fatigue inevitable over the long season. Several players from the past (including Hall of Famers like Mike Schmidt) admit they would have taken steroids if available. Players are always a couple good or bad performances away from moving one way or another. Whether it is crossing the line between weak prospect to top prospect or from AAAA style player to ML regular or from being a regular making ML minimum to being a guy with a guaranteed contract worth millions and so on.
Separately, Canseco's comments on Sosa's appearance changing being evidence of usage means nothing. While I may thing it is likely Sosa used, it is ridiculous to base an accusation on the change in body shape. Sosa did grow, but it was not (in my memory) an overnight, massive change like Bonds. All of us tend to put on some weight as we hit our 30's.
Bottom line is HoF voters are going to have to consider the totality of each players career and make up their minds. Initially, some will not vote for any player they have the slightest suspicion of using. In time they will have to look deeper at the numbers and decide whether the players performance as compared to their contemporaries merits permanent recognition. Some guys who looked like shoe ins will drop off the ballot and need to hope the VC is more forgiving.
Why don't we have two sections of the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown ? One for the legits like Babe, Mantle, Nolan Ryan, etc and another section called the cheaters hall of shame with Sosa, McGuire, Palmerio and no doubt A-Rod in the future. By doing this, every year, when players are elected, this would eliminate the question of whether players should enshired in Cooperstown.
I agree with you Ken. They should be separated something like the old testament players and the new testament players.
The owners and fans are to blame for all of this crap. We all loved Sosa and McGwire when they were hitting bombs. We loved it when we saw the big numbers. We were all fascinated with Mac's forearms. Shame on every person that cry's foul now. The public wouldn't give a crap about baseball now if it weren't for the steroid era, and to be honest that's what keeps most people interested now. After the strike of '94 everyone new the game was on it's last legs. Any real baseball fan should kiss Sosa and McGwire's ass and thank them for bring baseball back from the brink. Also steroids weren't a banned substance when all this was going on. Imagine your at your job and you are one of the best at what you do. Then people give you the stink eye because the company you work for, due to public pressure, outlaws coffee. Would your production drop if you couldn't have coffee? Probably! Does that tarnish all the good work you did before coffee was banned? Just my 2 cents.
everyone expects baseballs players to be rolemodels to THEIR kids. Thats your job parents.. and if you havent realized already, most of the mlb players are cheats, from telling batters pitch locations, to leaning out over the plate, to corked bats, to steroids. It should be renamed the hall of shame and then you could just let EVERYONE in the major leagues in.
the FIRST sentence said it ALL
Before there was steroids, there were home-made salves, creams, etc, etc that pro athletes in all major sports used in order to get an edge on the competition. It's also no secret that Babe Ruth & many other athletes used cocaine & "snuff", to help them pick up the pace in games. All these things were done before they were banned, but yet they were still used, and most likely contributed to the HOF records many of the greats had, and it is wrong. So, if we're going to begin putting asterisks on modern day athlete's records, we ought to stop kidding ourselves into thinking this is something new. It is our insatiable desire for higher stats & numbers out of athletes that has driven this trend of cheating. Because naturally, there's only so high a person can achieve without assistance, and even when it does happen naturally, the margin is so slight, or so long in between, we (the fans) will overlook it because we're drawn to the other player crushing records somewhere else. Simply put, there is nothing that we can do to put an end to athletes doing anything possible to get that edge over the competition. No matter what rules are put in place, it is human nature to try and get around them.
Personally, growing up a Royals fan in the canyon-size stadium they had, the team never had a swatter in their glory days of the late 70's. They played fast, and won with small-ball. Teams are now discovering this again, and it's much more entertaining and suspenseful, and may I say shorter, than the 2000's era of the 12-9 game. But OUR need for bigger numbers wasn't the reason. It was the 15, 18, 20, 25 million dollar contracts that people were willing to spend. Our two highest baseball contracts in recent memory are A-Rod and Manny. And both have some link to PED's according to reports released this year. Love of money...root of all evil. A direct corollary is insider trading. Just that extra boost to get you over the top. I'll suffer the consequences later...if I get caught.
Unfortunately, there has never been a time in major league history when athletes played "pure & clean", so to speak. Perhaps it wasn't anywhere near rampant as it has been in recent years, but again, any leverage they could use, they did. From corked bats, steroids, amphetamines, you name it, it's likely been used. When I said it's our insatiable desire, I was speaking of society as a whole, from the team owners to the fans at home. Certainly, when the owner is committing to pay a king's ransom to some zit-faced man-child, or to the 12 yr veteran hoping to keep playing a few more years, the pressure to perform can be unimaginable. And the added pressures from society of doing better than last year, or better than the other guy, or topping some HoF record, that go with those contracts, surely don't make things any better. Life in a fishbowl isn't for the faint of heart, I'm sure.
Ruth snorting cocaine? Snuff giving you an edge to crush a baseball 600'? Where are you getting this stuff?Your really reaching Mtommy. You should have included bubble gum and soda pop for that sugar spike.