The Predicament of the Baseball Hall of Fame

Former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once said, “The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.” Legacy and immortality are very difficult to quantify, but no matter how adamantly baseball players profusely deny it, they care about how the public looks back on their playing career. Juxtaposing the legacies of players from vastly different eras is quite an onerous task (just imagine trying to compare the careers of catchers Mike Piazza and Roy Campanella) and it has become even more difficult because of the recent performance-enhancing drug (PED) implications that will forever pollute the indelible image of baseball. However, comparing different ballplayers is a large reason why fans are so enamored by the game and the Baseball Hall of Fame serves as the representative platform for the judgment and assessment of players’ careers. 

The Hall of Fame voters recently made a statement when they elected to shun any player from entering the hall, who they had suspected might have used PEDs. The task of the Hall of Fame electors is to essentially answer the question, “Do the statistics compiled by a certain player along with his intangibles show evidence that he is amongst the greatest of his era?” The voting for the Hall of Fame is certainty not a perfect science and the sports world was left in pure dejection after there were no inductees to the hall for just the first time since 1996 and only the second time in over 40 years since 1971. However, players that used PEDs should not have been voted in baseball’s most prestigious club as the “memory of their name” will always be identified with tainting baseball’s legacy and their drug usage has certainty not left an “inheritance of a great example.”

Players that used or alleged used PEDs were not on a level playing field with the rest of their counterparts on the diamond. The unprecedented statistics that ballplayers like Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, and Roger Clemens were able to amass over the careers need to be looked at with a grain of salt, as their numbers are completely inflated due to their drug usage. 

Some fans argue that while Mark McGwire may have taken steroids, the performance enhancing drugs didn’t teach him how to catch up to a fastball or how to hit a breaking ball. However, anybody who makes it to the MLB is obviously good enough to contend with the greatest players in the world, and PEDs give major leaguers an extra edge, which could propel them from an average player to one of the most dangerous in the league. For example, in 2010 Melky Cabrera hit .255 with the Atlanta Braves and knocked out just 4 home runs. However, when he began to take steroids, his batting average leaped all the way up to .346 and he hit a career high 18 home runs two seasons ago. 

Steroids allow baseball players to build endurance, strength, and muscle, such as Barry Bonds, who went from a speedy 185-pound outfielder on the Pittsburgh Pirates to a stocky 230-pound power hitter on the San Francisco Giants. PEDs also allow players to recover from injury at a much faster rate. Andy Pettite, who testified in court that Roger Clemens told him in 1999 or 2000 that he was using steroids, has admitted that he was able to return quicker from elbow surgery because of human growth hormone usage. 

With all this in mind, voters were justified in their decision to not elect players like Bonds or Clemens into the Hall of Fame because steroids gave them an unfair advantage over the other players in the league.

The Baseball Hall of Fame is a museum that shows the history of America's national pastime, and honors the careers of the most outstanding ballplayers of all-time. Some people contend that by not putting players like Bonds and Clemens into the hall, the voters are neglecting a major part of baseball's history. However, just because the Hall of Fame may not induct steroid guys into its elitist fraternity, doesn't mean that players connected to PEDs won't have any part in the hall in terms of its artifacts, videos, and photos. The paradoxical nature of PEDs is that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's home run chase to catch Roger Maris's single-season home run record in 1998 was one of the most exhilarating events in baseball history, and it brought the game back to the forefront of sports after its embarrassing strike in 1994. However, McGwire and Sosa didn't do it the right way, which is damning to their own careers as well as to the history of baseball.

More than any other sport, baseball is a numbers game and its fans cherish its past history and stats. If somebody says 71,838 (the NFL career passing yards record set by Brett Favre) or 38,387 (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's NBA all-time scoring record), very few fans would know the significance of those statistics. When somebody says the number “56,” baseball fans immediately think of Joe DiMaggio’s hit streak in 1941, while “714,” the number of home runs Babe Ruth hit in his career, is revered by fans. Numbers are sacred in baseball, which is why the steroid era has infuriated so many people, as PED usage has tainted the game.

Although many people agree with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s (BBWAA) decision to not elect PED users into the hall, that doesn’t mitigate some of the other head-scratching judgments that the journalists from the organization have made in their Hall of Fame voting history. While a preponderance of the writers are very fair and accurate voters, it is baffling that some of the journalists still refuse to elect players into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. The fact that Willie Mays, arguably the greatest baseball player ever, and Stan Musial, by many accounts the greatest left-handed hitter of all-time, were both left off more than 20 Hall of Fame ballots in their first year of eligibility is an absolute abasement and disgrace.

Furthermore, statistics are set in stone once a ballplayer ends his career, and it is up to the writers of the BBWAA to determine if a player is Hall of Fame worthy. It makes little sense how Andre Dawson could receive 67 percent of votes in his 8th year on the Hall of Fame ballot, but the next year receive more than 77 percent of the Hall of Fame votes. Dawson's career was cemented once he retired from baseball in 1996, so it is puzzling that "The Hawk" can receive an additional 50 votes from one year to the next when nothing about his baseball career actual changed.

We should get some Hall of Fame clarity next year when Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas are all eligble for the ballot. Maddux (355) and Glavine (305) are both 300 game winners, and Frank Thomas is one of just 9 players along with Willie Mays (.302 BA, 660 HR), Babe Ruth (.342 BA, 714 HR), Ted Williams (.344 BA, 521 HR), Hank Aaron (.305 BA, 755 HR), Jimmie Foxx (.325 BA, 524 HR), Mel Ott (.304 BA, 511 HR), Manny Ramirez (.312 BA, 555 HR), and Alex Rodriguez (.300 BA, 647 HR) to have hit 500 home runs and have a career average of at least .300. Hopefully, the writers will do everybody justice by voting in all three of the deserved first ballot Hall of Famers next year.