This year marked the first year since 1996 that no Major League Baseball player was inducted into the Hall of Fame. The 1996 class featured six future hall of famers' such as Ron Santo, Phil Niekro, Bruce Sutter, Tony Perez, Don Sutton and Jim Rice. This year some of baseball's most recognizable and notorious names were denied the chance to enter the Hall of Fame. Craig Biggio, a 3,000 hit machine, along with 250 game winner Jack Morris and two time world series champion and 6 time all-star Curt Schilling did not receive the 75% support needed to make the Hall. More notable than the denial of those three, was the lack of respect (and deserved) given to suspected steroid users Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, and Mark McGwire. McGwire and Palmeiro had previously been on the ballots and their percentage received of 16.9 and 8.8 respectively, had been a drop. Bonds and Clemens each received less than 40% while Sosa won over only 12.5% of the writers. Bagwell and Piazza's names' have flirted with steroids for years now, but the evidence against them is not nearly as strong as it is for the other five mentioned. Because of this, Piazza, arguably the best hitting catcher of all-time and Bagwell, one of the best pure hitters of our generation eclipsed just under 60% of the vote.
What may be even more bizarre and confusing about this voting is the lack of respect that is given for non-steroid users. Seven of the twenty-five members of the 500-home run club, a benchmark that has been used as an automatic entry for Hall of Fame admission, are suspected or admitted steroid users. All of these members, barring A-Rod who is still playing, are not close to admittance. With this statistic, it is strange why first-baseman Fred McGriff received less than 20% of writers' approval. McGriff has 493 career home runs, was a 5-time all-star, a world series champion and in an era that reeked of steriods, no one has ever sniffed anything suspicious around McGriff. If the writers are going to dismiss all steroid users, why not give more credit to those that put up great numbers with out the usage of performance enhancing drugs. Unfortunately most of the players of this past generation that would have been first-ballot hall of famers, are linked to steroids. Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Mike Piazza, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, and Roger Clemens are all linked to steroids and thus there hall of fame chances are slim.
So what does this mean about the other great hitters of our generation who are not linked to steroids. First, since Jim Thome, Frank Thomas, and Ken Griffey Jr.'s names' have not been linked to steroids, these home run legends will be Hall of Famers. Those are only three sure-fire hitting Hall of Famers in the next five voting years. Obviously pitchers such as Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Pedro Martinez and possibly John Smoltz and Mike Mussina will be admitted over the next five years. Still though, what will the writers' policy be of incredible hitters of our generation who were lost among the steroid users. Carlos Delgado has 473 career home runs, Jim Edmonds is an eight-time gold glove winner with 393 home runs and Vladimir Guerrero has 449 home runs, 8 all star selections and an MVP. Along with Fred McGriff, these are players of our generation who were not the sexy super stars like Bonds, A-Rod or Sosa, but their numbers are great and they were clean. Obviously you should not be awarded for cleanliness, but wouldn't have these players gotten more recognition if these other players weren't putting up great numbers while juicing.
The writers' voting habits over the last few years are incredibly perplexing. They have shown that they have no sympathy for steroid users, but they're also not going to give the benefit of the doubt to non-steroid users who are fringe- hall of famers. Craig Biggio is one of 28 players in MLB history with 3,000 hits and besides Pete Rose and Rafael Palmeiro he is the only retired 3,000 hit player not in the Hall of Fame. Furthermore, an overwhelming percentage of the 3,000 hit players were first ballot hall of famers. The dismissal of Biggio, but the high percentage that Bagwell and Piazza got, even with steroid rumors, shows that these writers want to get these former superstars in the hall, as long as there is not overwhelming evidence of them as steroid users. Biggio's numbers are more similar to hall of fame inductees than Piazza or Bagwell, without even the steroid rumors, so why is that their percentages were not far off? It seems that the writers still have a love-hate relationship with the past superstars of the steroid era.
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