Not too tough actually…

Take Bond’s and Clemen’s off. That’s 2 right off the bat. And if McGwire is still on the ballot take him off and that’s 3.

Give me two minutes and a ballot and I’ll be able to whittle it down for you quickly enough.

So you’re suggesting we vote people in for the economics of ticket sales? Isn’t that the same faulty logic that created this whole mess in the first place… the economics of ticket sales which is why people were willing to look the other way in the first place?

One mistake is bad enough, two damns everyone’s soul to hell. Sorry, too much to risk here. Try to pitch your PED users to the non-PED crowd in another way. Slapping lipstick on that pig doesn’t make her better looking, it only makes her look like a pig wearing lipstick.

You: “Holy crap, I’m exiting the highway already. I gotta be close and I’m making epic time.”

HOF: “Sit tight, tiger, you have 2 hours of one lane roads before you get to Mecca.”

You: /sadface

4 hours to Las Vegas. 5+ to Phoenix. 8 to San Francisco. 12+ hours to my inlaws.

Of course I see your point. Just being snarky. 8)

I disagree with your second reason, or “the bigger issue.” It’s not as simple as guys deciding to admit PED use. More information always comes out. It’s like water flowing downhill. Journalists dig, people with direct knowledge decide to talk, a fuller picture emerges with or without the player’s cooperation. My hope is that this week’s voting has the effect of galvanizing more reporters and authors to dig harder, maybe out of a sense of guilt for not pursuing the story while it was staring them in the face.

We (broadly, apparently most HOF voters and the general public) think we know enough about Bonds and Clemens already. If the evidence on the table is incorrect and either of them deserves credit for being wrongly accused, the onus is on them to show it. Both guys have considerable resources. They are like Lance Armstrong — if you’re innocent, the public will listen to you trying to show it. If any of them were wrongly accused, I believe we would have reason to believe that already.

Bagwell, Piazza, Biggio, Raines, Schilling — some of these guys who excelled during this era are, at the moment, being excluded because we don’t know. I include the so-called “suspicious” guys in that list as well as guys we assume are clean. We don’t know about any of them! I understand we never will completely know. I just think we will know more in the next few years than do now, and I would wait if I were voting.

If it turns out that we learn almost all players used PEDs at some point, I think the voting patterns will reflect that by enshrining guys like Bonds and Clemens on the logic that if a juiced-up hitter was cranking bombs off juiced-up pitchers, it’s a wash and it all counts. If it becomes clearer that the PED users were in the distinct minority and really gained advantages against clean opponents, I think the voters will keep them out and elect more presumably clean players from this era.

The hypocritical and ludicrous fact about this entire process that nobody seems to want to discuss, probably out of fear of hurting some player’s feelings, is that NOBODY can be called 100% clean. Period. And all these righteous assholes are going to vote in Greg Maddux saying things like “Never had any link to steroids and he was as clean as a baby’s bottom” Oh really? How the @$#%# do you know that? Because he’s Maddux? Because he didn’t get big? Maybe he took some HGH to get back from an injury early. Maybe he did some other PEDs that helped him stay fresh or something else. You don’t know and I don’t know. Anymore than back acne or big “bicepts” made Mike Piazza and Jeff Bagwell steroid users.

Any member of the BBWAA who votes for ANYBODY from the steroid era and doesn’t vote for Bonds or Clemens is a hypocritical asshole. This includes the media heroes like Griffey Jr, Jeter, Thomas, Maddux, Glavine, etc. Because NOBODY and I mean NOBODY can say for 100% sure that those guys didn’t dabble in performance enhancing drugs.

What’s wrong with a BBWAA voter’s approach to the players of the steroid era that says, “we still don’t have enough information. More will inevitably come out over time and a fuller and more credible picture will emerge in terms of how widespread this abuse was and which “great” players can fairly be considered culprits.

Two problems with this line of thinking, and I’ll take the shorter response first. If the writers continue this “wait and see” approach, the ballot is going to get extremely bloated in the coming years. Next year you can make the case for anywhere between 15-20 viable HoFers and that doesn’t include Jack Morris. A few years beyond that it’s going to continue to grow. This also has the unfortunate side effect of removing guys who should get some HoF consideration from the ballot entirely. Guys like Kevin Brown and Kenny Lofton got Whitakered this ballot even though they have better cases than many in the HoF.

The bigger issue is “what more information are we actually going to get”? For Bonds, the only person who would have direct knowledge of his steroid regimen is Greg Anderson, and he’s already gone to jail rather than testify against him. The chances of us finding out anything more about Bonds vis a vis steroids is nil. Clemens is in the same boat. Piazza/Bagwell, unless someone comes forward with proof, or they admit it*, how are we ever going to find out anything more? We still can’t conclusively prove how much steroids actually help a player, yet some writers have no problem saying these guys were entirely creations of a drug.

*I think McGwire showed that if anyone is thinking of admitting use, they should seriously think twice about it. Since his confession, his vote totals have actually dropped. You have more and more writers saying they’ll never vote for anyone who took PEDs. Better to have the cloud of suspicion over you than admit it and seal your fate.

Since its their baseball careers and not their souls being enshrined, I think Bonds and Clemens should be in. But I understand the debate against it. But anyone that thinks Bagwell, Biggio, Piazza, etc should be kept out are really, really missing the point.

-”Some of the biggest problems in this city come from women wanting to leave the home and work.”

-”Sneaky goddamn Jews are all alike.”

-”Never hire another n—-r. I’d rather have a trained monkey working for me than a n—-r.”

-”Only fruits wear earrings.”

-”Everybody knows [Hitler] was good at the beginning, but he just went too far.”

- “million-dollar n—-rs.” (in reference to Dave Parker and Eric Davis)