Coming to terms with an incomplete Hall of Fame

I haven't commented on the Hall of Fame election results from last week, and I wasn't sure I would. But I've been reading about the vote totals, perusing others' opinions -- both those eligible to vote and those not -- and mulling it over in my head lately.

Today, I first had a thought that I might write something, but not about Roberto Alomar or Bert Blyleven. I'm happy for Alomar, who certainly was one of the best second basemen to ever play the game, and his humility in discussing the accomplishment was nice to see. I didn't see Blyleven in his prime, so I can't say whether he was the kind of pitcher you either wanted to see when he came to your city to see greatness (or the guy you hoped your hitters wouldn't have to face). I didn't have a strong opinion of his career one way or the other (though he certainly did).

After I read Mets Police's comments on steroids and the Hall of Fame, I felt I had found my starting point. I think what struck me with that post and what I had been formulating over the past few days is that we saw what happened. We watched with our own eyes the numbers put up by Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro and Barry Bonds and all the others. But we also watched how their arms and torsos and legs -- and heads -- seemed to balloon to sometimes comical proportions. We may have suspected less-than-natural means for those changes, but we let them slide, because the home runs and strikeouts and feats of strength were so much fun to watch. As fans, we have some level of deniability. As for the writers ... those who covered the players, those who entered the clubhouses every day, they probably should've let us know something was up a bit sooner than they did. They chose to let it slide then, but now they choose the hard line.

In keeping these less-than-perfect players out of the Hall, the writers are doing more than punishing the players -- they're punishing those of us who watched these guys play. At the time, we thought, "We're watching a Hall of Famer in his prime." Now those feelings can't be validated. It's one thing to debate McGwire's stats or compare Palmeiro's numbers to his contemporaries' (for this argument, I'm speaking of all players as if they had the numbers that, otherwise, would represent a Hall of Fame career), but to cut off the discussion before it even begins just because you don't like the way he put up those numbers is cheating the game's history. The players' actions may have been unethical, but with the one exception of Palmeiro, whose one positive test came at the end of his long career, what they did -- or what we presume they did -- wasn't against the rules of the game at the time.

So now we're supposed to forget that managers were so afraid of what Bonds could do that they walked him twice as much as the next guy (Hank Aaron) in history and three times as much as nearly every other player ... ever. We're supposed to believe that pretty much anything that happened from the mid-'90s until 2005 -- no matter who did it -- can't be believed. We're never going to know how many players were unethical, but the writers have taken it upon themselves to make that decision for us.

I'm not completely against the writers. There was a time I wanted to be one of them, to be a beat reporter covering a Major League team, but along the way I chose to deviate from the path that might've made me one. There's still a part of me that would enjoy it, and I will probably take their side more than not, but as the years go by and McGwire's percentage falls and Palmeiro and even Jeff Bagwell -- a guy who was hardly suspected when he played and certainly has never been proven to be dirty -- have to start so far in the back of the pack on their first ballot, I think I'd rather they just cut down on some of the gray areas on the ballot instructions. There are plenty of unsavory characters already in the Hall. Sure, some of them may have managed to keep their indiscretions under wraps, but surely the antics of Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle and others were known by some of the writers went ahead and voted for them anyway. It is here where I think Mets Police's suggestion (and I'm sure others have offered it as well) is the compromise to be made: Evaluate the players on their numbers, and if there is some clarification that needs to be noted -- McGwire's admission, Palmeiro's failed test, Sammy Sosa's corked bat -- then it should be engraved on the plaque. It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of the Pristine, the Hall of the Perfect. It's a museum, a place where the good is often presented along with the bad. Contrast -- context -- can help highlight the true greats.

But if there's one thing that bothers me more than anything else -- not just in baseball writers' Hall of Fame voting, but in all walks of life -- it's hypocrisy. In the past week, you've probably read about the ballot submitted by ESPN news editor Barry Stanton. Forget about his checking off the names of Jack Morris, Edgar Martinez, Don Mattingly, Tino Martinez and B.J. Surhoff (and no one else). That's another debate. My problem is with the fact that, in 2002, he resigned from his position as a sports columnist in Westchester, N.Y., after he was charged with plagiarising a Joe Posnanski column.

So the Baseball Writers' Association of America, which takes it upon itself to decide who has the character worthy of election into the Hall of Fame, cannot or will not judge the character of its own membership? What is the difference in Mark McGwire taking androstenedione or steroids to make his job easier and in a sports writer taking another's words to make his own job easier? There's an element of laziness in both acts -- and a character flaw in both of the men who committed the indiscretions.

The writers need to trim the fat on their electorate. This year, a record 581 ballots were cast, meaning a player needed to be named on 436 of them to gain the 75 percent needed for election. I'm not saying it needs to be a hard number, 100 or 200 or whatever. But why should those who no longer cover baseball or work as an editor for an outlet covering the sport -- such as the political cartoonist in Montreal or the college football writer mentioned in Craig Calcaterra's post -- still be asked to judge the merits of baseball players with regard to the Hall of Fame? And if the players are to be judged on their character, shouldn't those doing the judging have to abide by some standards of character? Or are they permitted to live in glass houses without any fear of repercussions?

Nobody's perfect -- not Hall of Famers, not writers, not fans. Yet we may be bearing a disproportionate amount of the burden for their mistakes.

Still a fan of the summer of '98

Mark McGwire at Wrigley Field, May 1, 1998

I graduated from college in 1998, so that was a special summer for me, too. I set up my spring semester schedule to only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My friends and I popped champagne on our apartment balcony after our last finals. We caught a Cardinals-Cubs game at Wrigley Field on a pleasant May afternoon. After the commencement ceremony -- which took place on the same day the Yankees gave away Beanie Babies for a game against the Twins (and David Wells pitched pretty well, I believe) -- I came home to New Jersey and spent six weeks going to a few graduation parties and planning my cross-country trip.

And all that summer, as I drove out to California and back, I followed what has become known as the Great Home Run Chase. Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and the ghost of Roger Maris. I saw McGwire hit home run No. 12 that season, a ninth-inning two-run shot off of Rod Beck in a game the Cubs won, 6-5. When I stayed in Major League cities, I checked the schedules to see if the Cardinals were in town, just missing them in San Diego when I was in L.A. and in Colorado when I got into Denver. And in a small bit of personal symmetry, I was back on campus in South Bend, watching the Labor Day afternoon game on ESPN when McGwire hit his 61st long ball that season. An interview for a job with a local newspaper kept me in town the next night, too, when I watched him hit his 62nd. I might've teared up watching it happen.

It was all so compelling: missing first base in the excitement, high-fives from Cubs infielders as he rounded the bases, a bear hug with his son at home plate, Sammy Sosa's sprint in from right field, his tearful embrace with Maris' widow and sons. As baseball fans, how could we not become enthralled? The 1994-95 strike was still pretty raw, robbing fans of the World Series for the first time since John McGraw didn't feel the Boston Red Sox, of the inferior "American League," were a worthy opponent to his National League pennant-winning Giants in 1904. Cal Ripken may have broken Lou Gehrig's consecutive-games streak in '95, but that came too close to the strike -- and he would've broken it sooner if it weren't for the strike -- to help the healing. We didn't have enough distance.

Three years, it seems, was enough distance to bring us back, to capture our attention with a chase at one of the game's great records. We all watched, and few of us, I think, questioned it. Mike Lupica wrote a book about it. I bought it and read it and still love the cover image.

But even if we did suspect at the time that McGwire might not be all natural, we did so in a less accusatory tone. Yeah, it may have happened, but who can really say? It wasn't like today, when accusations of performance-enhancing are not brushed off so easily and we find ourselves pausing to contemplate whether or not we think the player mentioned compiled his stats solely on his own ability. When McGwire first appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot, Lupica said that he doesn't think McGwire should be elected. Bill Simmons called him on it. We're all still trying to figure this out.

In 80 plate appearances against three admitted or widely suspected performance-enhancing pitchers, McGwire hit four home runs -- two each off of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte and none against Jason Grimsley. He struck out 14 times vs. Clemens (in 53 at-bats), five vs. Pettitte (in 21) and had none against Grimsley (but with four walks in six at-bats). But now that our suspicions are being proven, will we look at the steroid era any differently? Will it someday come to the point that, yeah, hitters were juicing, but they were facing pitchers who weren't clean, either? Are others going to come forward? Is Sammy Sosa next?

I never thought I'd be saying this, but I may not care anymore who was on steroids. With every new player whose name comes up, I think my outrage subsides a bit. I liked McGwire in the '90s and I can't say I like him any less now. I'm a bit disappointed, both in the fact that he decided to cheat and that he waited so long to come clean. But he still came clean faster than Pete Rose did for his transgressions and some of these other players we've got at the top of our suspected users lists. Knowing what I know now, confirmed, may sadden the 33-year-old me, but the 21-year-old from 1998 still remembers a great summer.

So maybe it's time Bud Selig and the baseball writers just give amnesty to all the steroid and HGH users from the past up until the Mitchell Report came out. If you used then, 'fess up, and all's good. Yeah, the numbers McGwire, Sosa and Barry Bonds put up may not be fair to Roger Maris, Babe Ruth (Sosa broke Ruth's record for home runs in one month) or Hank Aaron, but the 162-game schedule also wasn't fair to Ruth and so many other advances in baseball and technology have also tilted the playing field -- literally, in some cases. From expansion several times over to night games to domed stadiums to maple bats to elbow guards to dietary supplements to training regimens to ballpark design, the game has changed over the decades. Even comparing players of the same era is not fool-proof. Did Ted Williams hit 160 more home runs than Joe DiMaggio because he was more powerful, or did Yankee Stadium's Death Valley in left-center rob DiMaggio of a glut of long balls? Or what if DiMaggio hit left-handed? Sadly, maybe this is another variable to consider. Maybe, as others have written, the Steroid Era has to be treated like antithesis to the Dead Ball Era.

I'm not going to go out and buy a McGwire jersey and I don't see myself making an extra effort to get to batting practice and cheer him as hitting coach when the Cardinals come to New York. But I won't boo him, either. I won't make signs or yell insults. Maybe I've come to accept it, or maybe I'm just scared that the next name will be someone I truly adored, a name that will really upset me and shatter those memories of past summers.

Surely some not-so-free agents

If money were no object, some team in baseball could potentially add nine future Hall of Famers to its roster this offseason, including what is obviously a baseball first: available sluggers who have reached the 700, 600, 500, 400 and 300 home-run plateaus.

First, the possible -- not all probable -- Hall of Famers: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Tom Glavine, Andruw Jones, Mike Piazza, Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez, Curt Schilling and Sammy Sosa. I'm not going to go into here the debate about whether Jones and Schilling are Hall of Famers, just like I'm not bothering with the technicality that Clemens hasn't filed (and could very well retire) and that Sosa's election to the Hall is very much in doubt.

And the homers:

Bonds, 762
Sosa, 609
A-Rod, 518
Piazza, 427
Jones, 368

Even in such a weak free-agent class, some video-game roster finagling could still produce a pretty competitive team. Obviously age is a factor in the real world, but not on the Xbox -- particularly if you turn off the injuries. A rotation consisting of Clemens, Glavine, Schilling, Kenny Rogers and Livan Hernandez would pile up some wins. Todd Jones or Eric Gagne could close. First base would be a problem -- Doug Mientkiewicz and Ryan Klesko seem to be the only options, unless you count Julio Franco -- but Kaz Matsui is there at second, David Eckstein at shortstop and A-Rod, obviously, at third. Or go with A-Rod at short and Pedro Feliz at third. The outfield has options from Bonds, Jones, Sosa (left to right) to an all-center lineup of Jones, Torii Hunter and Aaron Rowand, or some other grouping. Mike Piazza, Paul Lo Duca and Jorge Posada are there to catch.

But the team would probably have a payroll of $300 million, a tenth of that spent on A-Rod alone.

So long Sammy

Apparently for Sammy Sosa, the chance to reach 600 career home runs is not worth the "humiliation" of earning a roster spot in spring training or not being given a starting job.

It's been reported that Sosa is considering retiring rather than accepting the only contract offer he's received this offseason, from the Washington Nationals. (Which, if he does accept it, would make him the first big-name player to play for both the Baltimore Orioles and the Nats. Keith Osik, Hector Carrasco, Deivi Cruz and New Jersey native Jeffrey Hammonds became the inaugural members of that club last season.)

[Note: On Wednesday, he did reject the offer.]

While there are some parallels to Sosa's situation and that of Jerry Rice, who retired last year rather than accept a limited role as the fourth receiver on the Denver Broncos' depth chart. The one that stands out most to me is that Rice retired despite needing just three receiving touchdowns for 200 in his career, a number he probably could have reached even as a fourth receiver. Sosa needs only 12 home runs to become just the fifth player in major league baseball history to slug 600. He hit 14 last year in 102 games.

But Sosa has another significant factor, that of course being steroids. He was an Oriole last year when Rafael Palmeiro — one of the players with whom Sosa appeared before Congress nearly a year ago — was revealed to have tested positive, an announcement that came just days after his milestone 3,000th career hit. Not only would Sosa now be playing his home games in front of some of those same members of Congress, but he would certainly have to put up with further speculation as he neared the magical 600. Or maybe he's just afraid that hitting 600 would bring more recognition from Congress.

If Sosa wants to retire, that's certainly his right. There's no doubt he's made enough money to secure himself for the rest of his life, especially in his native Dominican Republic. Heck, he "earned" $17 million for batting .221 last summer. I'm sure with the right advisors and investments, I could make $17 million last the rest of my life, and I'm eight years younger than the 37-year-old Sosa. There are, however, three notable players — former superstars — who have swallowed their pride and accepted what they might consider to be below-market, even "humiliating" contracts to keep playing, perhaps because they have something to prove: Mike Piazza, Nomar Garciaparra and Frank Thomas. Piazza and Thomas could have easily retired with their respective 397 and 448 home runs rather than accepting $2 million from the Padres for this season (as Piazza did) and $500,000 from the Athletics (Thomas, though it could reach $2.6 million with bonuses).

I used to like Sosa. In 2003, I wanted to believe that his corked bat episode — which came to light just two days after Congress' resolution congratulating him on 500 home runs — was a mistake, one of the few things to which I'll admit I agreed with Bud Selig. But Sammy seems to have grown cranky in his old age. Remember when he blew up at Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly in 2002 when the columnist asked him to take a steroids test? Looking back, maybe that was the beginning of the end for the Slammin' One. That was before the corked bat, before the sneeze that broke his back, before the man who once knew enough English to understand the humor in saying, "Beisbol has been berry, berry good to me," left his statements before Congress to his lawyer.

At this point, however, I don't really care how he goes out. In a what-have-you-done-lately world, Sosa's more than used up the goodwill from the Great Home Run Chase of '98. It'd be nice to see the milestone of 600 home runs — he'd be the first Latino ballplayer in the club — because if Barry Bonds can be praised for it, Sosa deserves to be too. But I'm not going to lament his absence from the game if he's taken his last at bat.

Juicy

I've wanted to stay away from commenting on this whole steroids issue. I'm not trying to ignore it and think that it will go away, because it clearly won't. But I felt I didn't have much to say that wasn't already being thrown about, and that's still probably the case. But on the heels of last week's congressional hearing, it's taken a new turn.

First, there was the delicious sight of Bud Selig squirming and Donald Fehr sounding simply sleazy and heartless. "Progressive punishment?" God. The best thing that came out of the D.C. grandstanding was the exposure of the true wording of baseball's supposedly "tougher" steroid policy.

As for the players, it was shameful on both sides of the photographers' pit. The politicians fawned over the players and acted like they'd invited their athletic heroes into their homes and were amazed by their mere presence. For the athletes' part, they backtracked on everything they've said and done in the past few weeks or years. Jose Canseco backed off everything he's ever said or written about steroids and even Curt Schilling -- perhaps the biggest politician in the MLB players' association -- backtracked from what he's been saying for months about steroids.

But the saddest sights were Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. As Tom Verducci said, here's a guy who felt free and comfortable talking in English since the 1998 home run chase, and now he doesn't even open his mouth in his own defense? I have yet to see a news clip since that shows Sosa saying anything. He looks like a mentally challenged hulk sitting there in his suit while his gray-haired lawyer serves as his mouthpiece. And, of course, everyone's already pointed out his use of the word "illegal" when saying he'd never used "illegal drugs."

As for McGwire, a player I once enjoyed to watch and marvel over, it was clearly a sad scene -- this once Paul Bunyan-esque slugger now appearing smaller, his face markedly clearer, dressed up (it seemed) in grandpa's reading glasses. All he had to do was come out and say it, say he never used steroids, and he'd be validated. But he didn't, probably because he couldn't, and now everyone -- Buster Olney, Jayson Stark, the news articles have jumped on the player everyone praised six summers ago.

Except one. Interestingly, Ben McGrath's "Talk of the Town" piece in The New Yorker is the one column I've seen that's portrayed McGwire in a positive light. But as Verducci said, hasn't McGwire learned the importance of history, of learning from the past? Clearly, we won't be learning from him.

* * *
Now what to make of Barry Bonds? Which is the act? His brash bravado during his press conference when he arrived in spring training? Or his quiet, humble, whimpering sob story yesterday? If not somewhere in between, I am going with history here and leaning toward the former. Will Bonds miss the entire season? Doubtful. Is he really done? Probably not. He's frustrated. True, he has been beaten down by allegations and accusations, but much of it he's brought upon himself. He berates the media, the sportswriters for bringing him to this point, but he had a choice in how he dealt with the reporters who, for the most part, were simply doing their jobs. He hasn't been cordial with any of them, or with many fans.

Blaming the writers for his woes, for his family's "pain," is weak. It's part of your job, your privileged career, that you have to live with. With McGwire's Hall of Fame resume clearly tarnished, in the minds of many, what will we make of Bonds'? Eddie Murray was known to be surly with the press, but he had little trouble getting to Cooperstown. Bonds shouldn't either, just because -- steroids or not -- his numbers are so eye-popping.

I, for one, won't be counting the days until Bonds is back on the field. I'll monitor his rehab, if only because of the fantasy baseball implications. But if he's hit his last home run, or if he comes back but still falls short of Hank Aaron's respectable 755, baseball will be better off. If not, if he gets healthy and passes Babe Ruth this year and Aaron in 2006, it will be a fitting mark on Selig's tenure -- perhaps his lasting impression. Baseball's greatest record, its home run crown, will be shrouded in a fog of suspicion, forever.

Short hops

As you may recall from the post just below this one, I specifically said the Orioles should trade Jerry Hairston and prospects for Sammy Sosa. I had no idea the Cubs would settle for two minor leaguers in second baseman Mike Fontenont and right-hander David Crouthers who are ranked merely No. 7 and No. 10, respectively, in Baltimore's top 10 by Baseball America. Plus, when you look at how little the Orioles actually have to pay Sammy (whether they decide to sign him to a ridiculous extension is their own fault), it was too good a chance to pass up. They'll need him to hit 66 home runs again to overcome their questionable pitching, but you never know.

* * *
According to Bob Nightengale at USA Today, the Pirates' Craig Wilson has ditched his mullet for a crew cut. We mourn you, Thor, god of thunder.

The flowing mane is no more ...
* * *
The Dodgers signed Japanese third baseman Norihiro Nakamura, who signed with the Mets in December 2002 but then decided he wanted to stay in Japan. He claimed the reason he bailed was because he went online to the Mets website and saw a report that he was coming to New York. The team and Nakamura apparently had made a deal to announce the signing in Japan, and Nakamura mistook the Mets' site at MLB.com as an official team site run out of Flushing. What he was actually reading, however, was a news story -- all of which boast the tagline, "This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs."

"I checked the Major League Baseball web site and there I was on the Mets' web site," Nakamura said at a press conference in Osaka back then. "We asked the New York Mets, please don't issue the news from New York. They broke our agreement. In Japan, the process is very important. We arrive at the new year with the Mets. We have to inform the club, 'We're going to sign with the Mets,' but then they broke the agreement. But I can't sign with a team that broke a promise."

It was probably good for the Mets, who might not have brought up David Wright last season if they were paying Nakamura $3.5 million (his deal was two years, $7 million). At least it appears they had Wright in mind when they made the offer to Nakamura.

* * *
If there's one good thing about the Super Bowl being played in February these past few years, it's that come Monday morning, when most of us are struggling into work after a -- ahem -- heavy night, we will be a mere 14 days away from pitchers and catchers reporting to sites across Florida and central Arizona.

The two weeks between the conference championship games and Sunday's Super Bowl have sapped my enthusiasm and momentum, so I offer only this half-hearted prediction: No one thought the Patriots had a chance against the Rams three years ago, so I'm going against the grain here. While it would be nice for Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis to pick up his third ring in four years, I'm picking the Iggles (+7), 29-20.

The solution to all his problems

Here's one for Peter Angelos: If you want to ensure that the Orioles don't lose too many fans to the Nationals, go out and get Sammy Sosa. Don't make MLB or Washington do the work for you; do it yourself. Put together a package of prospects and throw in Larry Bigbie or Jerry Hairston, have the Cubs pay a chunk of this year's salary if that's what it takes. But do it. It's a win-win for Baltimore. If Sammy can't bring the fans out to Camden Yards, with the 50 homers he could hit even if he misses two weeks with a sneeze-induced back injury, then you were right all along about your fan base in Washington. But if having Sammy hopping out of the batter's box 20 times in June fills the place even without the Yankees in the other dugout, then your complaints were bull, yet you've still got a packed house, which is what you really wanted all along.