I hate to admit this but from time to time I read the New York Daily News. I'm embarrassed by this because the writing is awful and the commentary doesn't make sense half the time. Now I have never claimed to be Bill Shakespeare here, but I have to imagine that the Daily News at least has editors. Case in point, this article by Bill Gallo talks about how much trouble baseball is in these days and equates it to the 1919 Black Sox scandal. He essentially argues that baseball needs a Babe Ruth in order to save the game. I agree that Ruth did a whole lot to help the game back after the Black Sox scandal, but the fact of the matter is that the steroid scandal we are facing now is no where near the level of severity of 1919, or for that matter the strike of 1994. Further, if you want to make an argument about players who saved the game, or at least bridged the gap from dark days to great days, you have to mention Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire.* I know, that hurts a bit considering that they more than likely juiced up and corked bats, but the disdain towards baseball after the 1994 strike was much more wide spread and damaging than the 1919 Black Sox scandal. That said I am not trying to take anything away from Ruth who in my opinion was the best player ever pound for pound.
There is no questions that baseball is in some hot water right now, but when the Mitchell report comes out and big name players are drawn across the coals it won't have the devastating effect that Gallo, or the rest of the media, would like us to believe. It is and has been common knowledge that steroid use has run rampant throughout the game for at least the last decade. Despite that fact baseball is more popular than ever and only continues to draw in new fans as it drastically increases revenue. Sure, guys like Barry Bonds stain the game, but we are not talking about canceling the World Series or missing an entire season the way that the NHL did a few years back. Players who used will face fines and suspensions (maybe jail in Bonds case) and then the game as a whole will move on. We don’t need a superstar to do that, we just need good clean baseball.
Incidentally, Mark McGuire is up for the hall of fame again this year. I'm betting he doesn't make it in.
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3 comments:
Since the inception of Hall of Fame voting, there have only been six years during which no player was elected, the last coming in 1960. This is one of the reasons why I believe McGuire will get in this year.
Last year was merely a slap on the wrist. As you stated above, McGuire and Sosa saved the game. He's certainly one of the most memorable players of his era (if not the most memorable). If the congressional hearings had not occurred, he would have been a shoe-in first ballot HoFer.
Taking away the first-ballot distinction places him in the second tier of the HoF. I believe that the Baseball Writers of America will deem this demotion sufficient punishment for his transgressions and rightfully put him in the hall this year.
The worry here is that they will be setting a precedent, giving a (mostly) free pass to performance-enhancing drug users. I, however, am optimistic that they will be able to examine each player on a case-by-case basis, and not give any categorical exemptions or admonishments.
This goes back to the standard argument about performance enhancing drugs. I think we have to agree that there's no way we'll ever know who was using and who was not. Those who get caught should suffer consequences, but not consequences so grave that they bear the brunt of all their peers who were sly enough to avoid detection.
There are plenty of tools to evaluate players adjusted for era and ballpark (OPS+, eqA, et al.). Baseball Writers have various levels of acceptance towards them. In an age where the taint of performance enhancing drugs is so far-reaching, it will be wise to rely on those statistics instead of more qualitative judgments.
Well said and I agree with your points, and considering Selig really has no say in the matter he will most likely particuarly since the hall of fame class this year is so weak.
Gallo is right in a way to compare steroid use to the Black Sox. They are both forms of cheating. Severity or not they taint the game.
Although, steroid use wasn't always illegal was it??
And hey it's okay that you sometimes read the daily news, we all faults...
:)
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