Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Steroids, Big Mac, and the Hall of Fame

Today I am going to switch gears and talk a little bit about that most Intellectual of sports: baseball. The wonderful thing about baseball is that it seems to lend itself to high-minded, philosophical debates. Maybe it is because the statistical orientation of it followers. Maybe it is because of the game's long and illustrious history. Whatever the reason, there seems to be something about baseball that attracts the most erudite of minds.

Recently, the Hall of Fame voting results have been announced, and the big story has been Mark McGwire's failure to attain enough votes to be elected into the Hall. Prior to the whole steroid scandal, it seemed like he was a lock to make it into Cooperstown. However, now that the cloud of suspicious is hovering over him in the wake of his disasterous Congressional appearance, it seems as if the voters have soured on him. McGwire makes a nice target for the collective wrath of the sports world. Fans feel as if baseball's resurgence during the 90's via the exploits of the great home run sluggers was based upon a lie aided and abetted by artificial means. Now is one of the first opportunities that we have a chance to take out our anger on one of the perpetrators of this lie, and McGwire is the first victim of this lynching.

One of the few writers who seems to have really given this issue some thought is ESPN's Jayson Stark. Stark is a veteran baseballl journalist and a Hall of Fame voter. In a recent column on ESPN.com, Stark explains why he decided to vote in favor of McGwire's induction. Although he is certainly in the minority, his words represent one of the view logical and dispassionate opinions on this subject. Rather than try and paraphrase his arguments, I will let you read the article for yourself.

The interesting thing to me is how he tries and separate the feeling of betrayal that he must feel as a baseball fan from the duty he has a steward of baseball's most cherished institution. Voting against McGwire would be an emotional choice and an easy one to justify in a sound bite. However, he took the hard road by actually thinking about the issue in a considered manner and making his choice knowing full well that his explanation would not fit into your standard 30 second talk show blurb.

The more I read his article, the more I see the wisdom of his choice. The truth is that we have no evidence about how widespread steroid use was, so it would be unfair to condemn a few people while letting others get a pass. Who knows? Maybe Cal Ripkin Jr used steroids and that is why he was able to play in so many consecutive games? Do we give Cal the benefit of the doubt because he wasn't a home run guy, and he seems like a "nice guy"? What about Roger Clemens in a couple of years? There is speculation about him, but does it rise to the level where it would cloud his candidacy? Who sets the standard anyway? Unless we are willing to apply some consistent standard across the board, then we cannot pick and choose who to hang at gallows of public opinion.

Also, if we accept the premise that "hundreds" of players were using steroids during the 90's, then we have to remember that players like McGwire were competing against other similarly juiced players. One criteria for induction is to choose the players who were the "best of their era". Certainly McGwire's accomplishments stand out, even in the steroid era. There were other players who juiced but most of them never came close to the level of performance that McGwire did. Yes, he was the best of a bunch of cheaters, but he was still the best. The only other choice is to not induct ANYONE who played during the 90's, since there is no way to distinguish between the cheaters and the non-cheaters. Yes, it may be sad, but there really isn't any other sane choice.

I know I said I wasn't going to paraphase Stark's article, but it feels like I just did, doesn't it? I guess I am just internalizing his arguments for myself.

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