Ivan Rodriguez is poised to tie Carlton Fisk's all-time games-caught mark tonight and, knees willing, break it tomorrow. Best of all, it's going to happen in Arlington, where his remarkable career got started. That was a long time ago -- his debut came a couple of weeks after I graduated high school, and I'm an old man now -- and Rodriguez's long career has the Houston Chronicle's Jose De Jesus Ortiz, and others, recalling the career of one of the greatest catchers the game has ever seen:
As manager of the Kansas City Royals from 1995-97, [Bob] Boone actually predicted Rodriguez would break Fisk's record.
"I'm proud of the fact I played the game right a long time," Bob Boone said. "You happen to get a record, that's kind of neat, but it really doesn't affect my daily life. I can remember looking at Pudge when I was managing Kansas City and thinking he would break the record.
"There's an art form to not getting hurt. There's a lot of athleticism to not being hurt. We'd just look at each other, and I'd think he was going to get the record. I just kind of smiled about it. I think he's a great player. I've been a fan of his a long time. The combination of offense and defense he's brought to the game has been amazing."
Is Boone genuinely admirable, or is his use of the phrase "played the game right," code for steroids in this case as it is in most other cases in which it's employed? I suppose there's no escaping that subject with Rodriguez since Jose Canseco claims in his book to have educated him (along with Rafael Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez) about steroids when they were teammates in Texas. He also claims to have acquired steroids on behalf of Rodriguez and to have personally injected him. Given Canseco's track record on these things, there's something more than an Ibanezeseque case to be made against Pudge on this count.
But you know what? I don't care. I'm not sure how everyone else approaches this issue, but I've taken to making rough guesses about how a PED-implicated player might have performed without the drugs, and then determining whether he still seems like a Hall of Famer afterwards. No, I'm not doing stats here nor do I claim to even be doing anything approaching science. It's just a mental exercise that I think represents about the best anyone can do for the pre-testing era players. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens pass my little test. Mark McGwire is a closer case. Rafael Palmiero fails it. There really aren't as many close cases as folks like to think.
Pudge is one of them. But with Pudge, I see a guy who was an amazing defensive catcher before Canseco ever made it to Texas, and has remained one even after the institution of testing and his subsequent reduction in physique. If Canseco is telling the truth about Rodriguez, we can probably expect that his power numbers would have been down, and we can likewise expect that he may have missed a few more games to injury or fatigue than he did over his long career.
Maybe your mileage varies on this -- indeed, maybe you'd have a bar on the door to the Hall of Fame for anyone implicated in the PED mess -- but takng his career as a whole, I still see a Hall of Famer when I look at Ivan Rodriguez, and I will be cheering him tonight and tomorrow as he makes history.
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Craig,
Concur that Pudge is a HoF'r regardless of rumors. I also try to evaluate whether a player was slightly aided by PED's or got a great deal of benefit out of them. It's obviously an unscientific measure, but I disagree with considering McGwire a closer call than Palmiero. Of course we can't say with any certainty when this player or that player started using. However, in McGwire's case it seems likely that steroid usage followed his litany of injures that had derailed his career. McGwire's career was on the ropes and all of a sudden he magically was able to stay healthy and the crazy seasons followed. Palmiero had a more steady career path. Also, recent information makes his claim to have gotten a tainted vitamin shot from Tejeda slightly more believable.
Anyone seriously interested enough to go to the Hall of Fame will know about the steroids era. Pudge has been an outstanding catcher in and out of that era. We just have to take it for what it was - it was a part of the game for that period of time. Over the course of the next 20 or so years we'll get a better picture of how important it really was. It's a shame to let guys that cheated into the HOF but I'll go along with it not needing an asterisk. It will be really interesting to see how Aroid's career turns out - no matter what he will always be despised because if nothing else we have learned he feels he is above the game. With Pudge you always got a gebuine player on a team. McGuire knew that if he confessed to it he'd never be in the HOF because all he did was hit home runs. I know he is being eaten up inside about this and respect his right to keep that info private. I always liked Palmiero but his finger waving denial stands out now - too bad. But as for Clemens and Bonds - both liars and cheaters - they deserve every thing they get because their ego's are so insane. I would never vote for either of them to enter the HOF.
Didn't realize it was the "Hall of Non-liars and Cheaters." Silly me for thinking the Hall was about greatness on the field. Guess we'll have to revoke Ty Cobb's membership now. Too bad, he was one of the great players of his era.
If Pudge took steroids, he sure seems to have avoided the injuries that derail most of these guys later in their careers. I hope he played the game right, he's been fun to watch over the years. Great catcher.
Ummmm if he was on the juice there is no way he should be in the hall. He cheated the game, his teamates, the opposition and the fans. Canseco has been right about everyone else he said used the juice why would he be wrong about pudge?
Do you feel the same way about the players from the 50s-90s who took amphetimenes? How about spitballers like Gaylord Perry? Are you aware that Babe Ruth had a corked bat? All of those things violated the rules of both their day and our day.
I don't mean to be a jerk about this, but where, exactly, do you draw the line on cheating? And if you draw it where you're proposing, are you OK with there being a pretty empty Hall of Fame?
He does not deserve to be in the hall of fame. Period. He cheated and cheaters must pay the price. There is no middle ground here.
And your proof is where exactly? As Craig mentioned right above you, others have "cheated" the game and still made the HoF. If he did take 'roids, of which there's no proof, why should he be denied?
He probably should and will get in the HOF. Just not on the first ballot. PED's are clearly a more serious transgression than amphetamines, spitballs & corked bats. All the players from this era will be stigmatized. Some more than others but I suspect that in the future all career totals and statistics from the last 20 years will be regarded as artificially inflated.
You would think the guiy would have turned into one of those DH-1B guys if he got off the juice after his mid 30's. I mean, a guy who can still catch late in his 30's with that kind of mileage on his knees and back...... Look at his contemporaries, heck look at all catchers, and you find few of them gutting it out year after year back behind the plate.
We'll never know for sure who was clean and who was not. But Pudge is a catcher who always seemed to like catching, which is saying a lot because mostof them don't spend a whole career back there.