If I Had A Vote...

The past is the past, and it can not be changed. This is a fact. The Steroid Era of the 1990's has come and gone in baseball. It has saved the game and, at the same time, given a black eye to it. It has been the topic for many conversations, ranging from would this guy get your vote to how do you base who gets in and who doesn't.


Well, most of the players who have been a part of that discussion are now on the ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame for the first time. Among the alleged are Barry Bonds, Jeff Bagwell (in his third year on the ballot), Mark McGwire (seventh season the ballot), Rafael Palmeiro (third season on the ballot), Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa. Another subplot is the factor of postseason dominance, which will fringe on whether or not Curt Schilling makes it in. Schilling was slightly above average on his regular season resume and nothing short of dominant on his postseason resume. But the main story of this 2013 ballot are performance-enhancing drugs. 

We know these guys took them. Congress may not have proven them guilty, for more reasons than we can get into, but we know they took them. They were named in the infamous Mitchell Report some five years ago. They had strange changes in their body mass for no apparent reason other than what a steroid does to the anatomy. Their performance was enhanced sometime after that change in body type. The fingers can be pointed as much as we want, an allegation with some meaty backing to it is good enough to me to throw someone's innocence out in this area.

But that doesn't mean I would throw their names out on the ballot.

As much as I hate the fact that steroids blemished the game, it happened. And you know what, as much as I would love to say that if I were in those guys shoes, I would not have taken PEDs, I can't promise that. I consider myself to be a very humble and honest man, and I definitely think I would have jumped at the chance at taking a safe drug that would enhance my performance on the field with few side effects, that mind you, WAS PERFECTLY LEGAL AT THE TIME. While they are illegal in the sport now, they were not when these guys took them in the 80s and 90s. The only thing holding them back from taking them was fear that they would still somehow get in trouble or fear of getting hurt. Thats seriously it.

I can't blame them for taking the PEDs when I can't promise that I wouldn't do the same exact thing, and I think more people should look at it that way. If someone came up to you today, and said "Take this pill, it will allow you to make better presentations. The only drawbacks are it might make you more fatigued and it might, might, shrink your balls. It is perfectly legal and , buddy, I can pretty much guarantee you will be the king of presentations.", I don't know you, but I know you would take that pill. Because there is something in all of us that wants an edge. And if we can get an edge by something that doesn't seem to harm us and is legal, what else would be the reason not to do so? Could Barry Bonds see the future of steroids and how much they would tarnish his legacy when he popped that first pill in his mouth or ass? Could Roger Clemens see himself testifying before Congress someday for doing something that was perfectly legal at the time? Unless he also had premonitions of him getting arrested for using a Therapeutic mattress to get a better night sleep, I see no argument against him. 

And than comes my biggest reason for baseball to allow them into the Hall, not my personal biases. Baseball was dying in the early 90s. It had lost its glamour and the old time fans of the game were either dying off or against the mainstream but awkward image MLB was taking on. The climax of this poorly handled transition was in 1994 when the season was cancelled due to a players strike. To what should have been no surprise, the popularity of baseball took a drastic hit that season and 1995 produced what might have been the least cared about season in the history of the game. It shouldn't have been, as it saw the Atlanta Braves win their lone World Series ring of a dynasty that won 15 consecutive NL East crowns. The sport was dying and it needed a rejuvenation that would win fans back and bring in new ones that were younger and pleaded for a more exciting and entertaining game. 

Homeruns and offense was the obvious answer. The Braves had won that 1995 World Series on the heels of a pitching rotation that might have been the greatest in history. Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz are all sure-fire Hall of Famers who anchored that pitching staff to record stages. But people didn't want pitching anymore, they wanted runs and offense. They wanted homeruns that traveled 550 feet. Steroids had given baseball the weapons they needed to pull that off, they just didn't know it yet.

The summer of 1998 saved baseball. Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire's chase and breaking of Roger Maris's single season home run record of 63 in 1961 won over skeptical and nonexistent fans and turned them into diehards. They love it. Barry Bonds was starting to produce crazy numbers that would have been eye popping if it weren't for the loveable rivalry between Sosa and McGwire. Bonds would eventually have his stage in 2001 when he broke the McGwire record by hitting 73 homeruns of his own. This is simply incredible and borderline inhuman. But it was entertaining, and in the end, do we really care how it happened? It happened and it won't unhappen. The end.

These players cheated, I am not selling that short. If it seems like I am, and it probably does, I want you to know that I watched Barry Bonds break the all-time homerun record when it happened. I never got to see Hank Aaron play live, but I still felt a strange feeling in my stomach. A cheater was now the best homerun hitter in baseball history. Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron were now backseats to Bonds, whether we had an asterisk there and whether we liked it or not. Bonds took steroids and it undoubtably aided him in breaking Aaron's record. But again, it was legal when he did it and it helped save baseball. For those reasons, I need to accept a few facts. One, none of these players have been proven without a shadow of a doubt that they did take steroids. And two, even if they did, because they did, they produced numbers worthy of the Hall of Fame. 

Now on a quick side note before I show my official voting ballot if I was a voter in the 2013 selection process, baseball needs to decide where there morals are. If they allow these guys with such serious and strong steroid allegations and cases into the heralded Baseball Hall of Fame, they need to let Pete Rose in first. To allow players who used drugs that directly aided there on-field performance into this place, they are hypocritical and nonsensical to not let a man who had off-field problems that only affected his off the field self. Gambling on baseball didn't make Rose the all-time leader in hits. Not letting Rose in but letting these steroid-linked players automatically takes all credit and honor away from being a Hall of Fame member.

And in 2013, with all of the problems that not only surround sports but everything, the last thing we could use is this controversial Hall of Fame ballot. People use sports to escape the problems of the everyday world and life. They don't expect the Hall of Fame for their favorite sport to be blackeyed. They also have no reason to believe it is by allowing players who provided some of the best entertainment the sport has ever seen in, regardless of how they got there. 

Pat's 2013 Unofficial Hall of Fame Voting Ballot
Yes
Jeff Bagwell, Lee Smith, Edgar Martinez, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Dale Murphy, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza, Craig Biggio, and Sammy Sosa

No
Jack Morris, Alan Trammell, Fred McGriff, Larry Walker, Don Mattingly, Bernie Williams, Curt Schilling, Kenny Lofton, David Wells, Steve Finley (although I was more borderline with Finley than I was with Schilling), Julio Franco, Reggie Sanders, Shawn Green, Jeff Cirillo, Woody Williams, Rondell White, Ryan Klesko, Aaron Sele, Roberto Hernandez, Royce Clayton, Jeff Conine, Mike Stanton, Sandy Alomar, Jose Mesa, and Todd Walker