Hall Pass

This week we got several newly minted Cooperstown selectees - Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Craig Biggio. Meanwhile, far better players than the latter, tainted with the stain of presumptive PED use, specifically Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens get shut out, likely for eternity.

Maybe personality contaminates part of the process. Neither Bonds nor Clemens were universally loved. Greatness often carries arrogance as excess baggage. One need not review the numbers for either, staggering as they are amidst baseball pantheon of stars. Bonds' and Clemens' statistical achievements are Nintendo-like compared to mere mortals.

Maybe it gets back to the 'appearance' of Hall of Famers.

Young A's slugger Mark McGwire (Bruce Banner). 

Veteran Cardinals' slugger McGwire (The Incredible Hulk).

We want our heroes to carry themselves in a certain way, apparently something less than the cartoonish metamorphosis that transformed excellent players into superheroes or super freaks, depending on your point of view.

Baseball doesn't want a separate "Steroid Wing" in Cooperstown. But let's not pretend that sports are as American as apple pie and motherhood. Have you ever had a bad piece of apple pie? I confess that I've had an occasional experience there. But perhaps baseball needs a separate wing, where the "usual suspects" are recognized/scrutinized.

You know who's who on the above list. Sammy Sosa can't carry Frank Robinson's shoes. McGwire versus Killebrew? Puh-lease. I believe that Barry Bonds would have made this list without "the cream and the clear." But the last time I checked, Rafael Palmeiro averaged something like fifteen homers a year for his first five full seasons. His career numbers suggest that a 'good' chess player suddenly became a Grandmaster. I'm not buying that bill of goods.

But how do we resolve the inflated numbers, the misrepresentation or overrepresentation of juiced (or allegedly so) cheaters?

I would have favored an "amnesty" program for those who acknowledged cheating. "If you cheating, you ain't trying." In the Age of Cheaters, being a juicer wasn't really 'outlier' stuff. The Best of the Juicers still were the best of their era, or so that argument goes. But the first part of redemption is admitting you cheated.

Let's face it, this isn't about solving world hunger, Middle East peace, or even agreeing on Global Warming. Whether Jeff Bagwell belongs in the Hall is a pleasant distraction (four homers one season in AA), not redacted CIA data. But I'm coming around to thinking that Bonds and Clemens belong in Cooperstown (and Pete Rose the player), even if it means having a separate exhibit detailing the sordid details of the Steroid Era.