Hall of Shame

The inductees for the MLB Hall of Fame were announced today and the news is grim. Sure, it's awesome that three worthy candidates–Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas–were inducted in the 2014 class. The grim news is, with this vote, baseball writers across this country with the capacity to cast a ballot for the Hall, have condemned the baseball Hall of Fame to be little more than a joke.

Once again, with the "PED Era" still looming overhead, players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were left out. Certainly that seems like a victory for some people. Winners never cheat and cheaters never win and all that sort of second grade garbage. I'll get to Bonds and Clemens shortly, but one other player left out of the Hall was Jack Morris. It was the final time Morris had an opportunity to be elected to the Hall and now he will forever be on the outside. Bonds and Clemens aside, this fact is really unfortunate and it's proof the Hall voters have no real criteria for their votes, no standard method of voting, no rhyme nor reason as to why they vote a certain way nor, most of all, no real idea what the Hall is about and why people should be voted in.

The general consensus among sports people is that players considered for inclusion in any Hall of Fame should be compared only to their contemporaries within the context of the era in which they played. Fair enough. So go to the 80s then, fill a pitching staff with the five best starters you can find. I defy you to not pick Jack Morris. I'll take him. My Jack Morris-included pitching staff will beat your non-Morris staff every single day. Not voting for Morris is simply an indication that those particular voters don't know what they're doing and, hence, shouldn't have a vote in the first place.

Now then, as to Bonds and Clemens, any Hall voter who didn't vote for either of these two should have their voting privileges revoked immediately. Yes, but the whole cheating thing. Right. Except the problem is nobody knows Clemens and Bonds used PEDs–they merely believe they did. See, knowing something involves evidence and as there is no evidence in either case, people can only assume Clemens and Bonds used something.

But, what about what Andy Pettitte said? He said Clemens used PEDs, yes I remember. I also remember that people only say stuff that actually happened. Oh. I mean, except for the whole concept of lying, half truths and "mis-remembering" things. Roger Clemens had 23 other teammates beside Pettitte, which says nothing of free agent signings, call ups for injured players, trades...so what are we talking about in a 5-6 year span? Maybe 40 different teammates? 50? More? Only one guy ever saw something? Only one guy was ever compelled to come forward–or...was it only one guy who was facing similar allegations who was trying to deflect some of the blame dumping down on him? Pettitte said this. That's meaningless, particularly given his circumstances. Twenty former Yankees players came forward and corroborated Pettitte's claims...now that's more tangible. Except...that never happened. Did it?

And what are you left with? Great pitchers Glavine and Maddux getting into the Hall while Clemens is left out? Glavine and Maddux are worthy, no doubt. They have six Cy Young Awards between them. Of course, they collectively still have one fewer than Clemens. Roger Clemens has won more Cy Young Awards than everybody besides...no, that's it. More than everybody. In fact, HOF pitchers Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson and Jim Palmer only have one more Cy Young combined than Clemens has on his own. So there's the comparison among contemporaries: Maddux and Glavine are in with their six combined Cy Young Awards, Clemens is out with his seven.

The Cy Young Award is only one measure of a pitcher's quality of course, but when you consider the award is voted upon by many of the same people that cast Hall ballots, the decision to omit Clemens is even more ridiculous. They are the ones who decided Clemens was the best pitcher of his era and they are the same ones keeping him out of the Hall because they think he might have broken some rules. But let's never mind with these voters knowing what they are talking about. One voter, a respected baseball writer for ESPN, said of his vote for Maddux that he was "the only pitcher to ever win the Cy Young four years in a row." Amazing. Not the Cy Young streak–it's amazing this respected baseball writer would include that sentence in his summation without including the remainder of the sentence: "Except for Randy Johnson...who also did it." Of course, Johnson's streak of wins started an entire three seasons after Maddux's run ended, so it's an easy oversight.

And I realize my appeal to logic and reason is not a sensible stance to take. I'm willing, as a result, to grant you all of the "proof" you want to cite as to Barry Bonds using PEDs. Let's forget, of course, the "evidence" against Bonds would not hold up in court–oh wait, I forgot. It didn't hold up in court. That's because the court, as a finder of fact, determined there were no facts. Conjecture, it turns out, isn't proof. Hmm. Who knew?

But forget all that. I'll still grant you all the "proof" you want against Bonds. So throw all of his PED Era stats away. What is that? A third of his home runs? Take them all away and all you have is a guy who hit 400-plus home runs and stole more than 400 bases...and what kind of standard is that for inclusion in the Hall? If we consider the "PED Era" began in 2000 and throw out everything Bonds did after that–no 73 home runs, no home run record, none of that, what you're left with is a player who played in nine All Star games, was a Silver Slugger seven times and won three MVP awards (which is one more than Thomas) and had eight straight seasons with an OPS over 1.000. Thomas, in comparison, was an All Star five times and won the Silver Slugger four times (even including the PED Era one) and he had an OPS over 1.000 seven times which, again, includes stats from the PED Era, whereas Bonds' PED stats are omitted.

So compare contemporary players. Throw out all of Bonds' numbers in the PED Era and compare them to Thomas (PED Era numbers included) and then figure out what justification voters have for keeping Bonds out of the Hall. Oh. But isn't there something to be said about his adversarial relationship with media members, many of whom simply don't like Bonds? Indeed. But it's the Hall of Fame. If it were the Hall of People Who Were Great Players and Universally Liked, the membership would be pretty thin. Cal Ripken, Kirby Puckett, Tony Gwynn and Paul Molitor would be pretty lonely in there, wouldn't they Ty Cobb?