2023 Baseball Hall of Fame Class

You did, though. These are your words, your opinion:

Until we know how many extra base hits were a product of the Clenbuterol, and how many strikeouts we should attribute to HGH, those numbers aren'treliable. Lies, damn lies, statistics, etc.

 

I described the problem. I didn't cause it.

I didn't erase anything. I stipulated who did.

 

You’re doing the actual erasing, tho. One has to grant your premise that it is a problem. It’s a problem because baseball writers made it a problem. I want Bonds to be in. I want Clemens to be in. It’s only a problem to people who share your opinion that the whole era is tainted.

 

It’s actually among baseball’s problems: too many gatekeepers.

 

But the Hall of Fame is entirely a product of gatekeeping.

The problem of performance enhancement exists. It's not imaginary.

Again, I don't have a vote. But the complications of the Steroid Era in baseball are real, and entirely self-inflicted. Including the willing blindness and willful ignorance of the baseball press.

If Bonds is in or out, or Clemens, et al, it's because Hall voters - the only gatekeepers in this discussion - want them in or out.

 

It sure sounds like you have a dog in this fight. I don't mean a specific player, but you are pushing one side of the debate hard.

No, the players didn't erase that era. The union didn't. MLB didn't. The fans didn't. A bunch of old or oldish men longing for a simpler, more uncomplicated time are trying to do it.

 

That doesn't mean they are right. Trying to legislate the past is just ridiculous. They are abusing and misusing their votes to try to revise history.

 

That is why they shouldn't try. The time to fix it was decades ago. Vote on what happened, not what they think should have happened or what they think would have happened.

 

I really don't.

Again, any Hall of Fame is by definition "gatekeeping."

Plenty of younger Hall voters seem confused by the problem as well.

 

The writers are creating the current problem, which is the evaluation of players who are either proven or accused PED users. The ones abusing their vote to legislate the past are absolutely creating the problem.

Also, you lost me when you suggested that PEDs tangibly began to have an effect on performance in the 1990s. You don't realize it was happening before that?

 

You really do. You are taking a side. That is having a dog in the fight.

They are confused because they are overcomplicating it by trying to legislate the past.