Baseball geekdom

I LOVE BASEBALL. It is one of those things that has always been a part of my life. I am a die hard Chicago Cubs fan and, since moving to Minnesota, I have learned to love the Minnesota Twins. Ron Gardenhire is a classy coach and he runs an equally classy outfit. Needless to say, as a fan I am always anxious to see who makes it to the Baseball Hall of Fame each year. Much has been made over the announcement of this years class, not so much be who is getting in but who was left out.

"Cal Ripken Jr. was the ironman who played in 2,632 consecutive games. Tony Gwynn was the hitting machine who won eight batting titles.
Both were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in near-unanimous votes Tuesday, but their achievement was overshadowed by the voters' rejection of Mark McGwire, a slugger who seemed like a modern-day Paul Bunyan before he fell into disrepute because of suspected steroid use."

During the season of 1998, Mark McGuire of the St. Louis Cardinals and Sammy Sosa of my beloved Cubbies were locked in a battle for the home run hitting title. Being as they played on cross state rivals (and my mothers two personal favorite teams) made the chase all the sweeter. They would see-saw back and forth and in the end McGuire just edge out Sosa. Given that this came on the heels of some disasterous seasons (thank you Bud Selig!) the race gave the league just the boost in attendance that it so badly needed. However toward the end of the season, the whispers started - whispers that McGuire and Sosa were augmenting their natural ability with steroids.

People are saying that this first ballot set-back is a "rejection" of McGuire and precursor of what Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds can expect when it's their turn. There is one minor problem with that theory. It is a very rare and talented player that makes the Hall on their first year of eligibility - players like Bob Feller the winningest pitcher in Cleveland Indian history and Roberto Clemente the stellar Pittsburgh Pirates right fielder. While McGuire was a special player (he won the Golden Glove in 1990) he is simply not special enough to qualify for first year inclusion.

Tony Gwynn, ever the classy player, said that he hoped that someday McGuire would make the hall - that he deserved it and he does.

Paul, over at Powerline, made an interesting comment - one that I think bears scrutiny.

"Meanwhile, baseball's sportswriters, including those who didn't vote for McGwire, simply missed the steroid story that was starring them in the face during the 1990s. So the case can be made that no baseball reporter who was active during that time should be inducted into the writer's wing (yes, there is one) of the Hall of Fame."

The Baseball Writers Association of America has always maintained a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge - say no more" relationship with the players. There was much that went unreported from locker rooms and planes and hotels across the country - going back to the time of Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth. Ty Cobb was a noted womanizer, although the press of the day never reported that or Ruth's hard partying life off of the field. Any writer who looked the other way, during McGuire's playing days, and now wants to hold McGuire to a standard that was not in existance (steroids were not illegal at the time McGuire and Sosa played) at the time should not be inducted themselves into the Hall of Fame. After all, what's good for the goose...