2013 MLB Hall of Fame Screechfest

Sourced to anonymous beat writers.

 

As the hundreds of major league ballplayers who turned to performance-enhancing drugs throughout the 1990s did their absolute best to keep the media at arm's length, Piazza took the opposite approach. According to several sources, when the subject of performance enhancing was broached with reporters he especially trusted, Piazza fessed up. "Sure, I use," he told one. "But in limited doses, and not all that often." (Piazza has denied using performance-enhancing drugs, but there has always been speculation.) Whether or not it was Piazza's intent, the tactic was brilliant: By letting the media know, of the record, Piazza made the information that much harder to report. Writers saw his bulging muscles, his acne-covered back. They certainly heard the under-the-breath comments from other major league players, some who considered Piazza's success to be 100 percent chemically delivered.

...

"He's a guy who did it, and everybody knows it," says Reggie Jefferson, the longtime major league first baseman. "It's amazing how all these names, like Roger Clemens, are brought up, yet Mike Piazza goes untouched."

"There was nothing more obvious than Mike on steroids," says another major league veteran who played against Piazza for years. "Everyone talked about it, everyone knew it. Guys on my team, guys on the Mets. A lot of us came up playing against Mike, so we knew what he looked like back in the day. Frankly, he sucked on the field. Just sucked. After his body changed, he was entirely different. 'Power from nowhere,' we called it."

When asked, on a scale of 1 to 10, to grade the odds that Piazza had used performance enhancers, the player doesn't pause.

"A 12," he says. "Maybe a 13."

 

It will be interesting to see what the reaction will be if Piazza or Bagwell get in and Clemens and Bonds do not.

I wonder which players do people put in the "he definitely used" or the "he might have used" or "he probably didn't use" category.

 

Anonymous bullshit. We should be better than that. The Hall of Famers should damn sure know better than that.

 

But it's a pretty tough call to say Bonds and McGwire did and Bagwell and Piazza didn't and we don't think Frank Thomas did but we know Palmeiro did because he failed a test even though he denies it, right?

 

Gotta respect Jefferson for at least putting his name to it, I suppose.

 

I really don't think there's any question that almost anyone who played in the majors during that era or covered the majors thinks Mike Piazza used steroids. Whether that constitutes proof or not is another question.

All it does for me is make it that much harder for me to pretend I know where to draw a line, so I don't.

 

Bobcat, does that mean you don't consider steroids at all? So, for instance, you evaluate McGwire based on 583 total HRs and 70 in 1998, and you evaluate Piazza based on 427 HRs which is pretty damn good for a catcher?

I wouldn't know how to deal with it either. My guess is everyone is going to have his or her own method and no two are going to resemble each other.

 

I think I'd like to withdraw my earlier votes for Piazza and Bagwell. Just too much smoke there.

It'll be strange some day if steroids - or whatever form PEDs take at that point, maybe genetic enhancement - become more acceptable, or even legal to use for performance-enhancement. Does that retroactively legitimize/redeem Bonds, Clemens, etc.? Or do we have to judge them based upon the ethics of their own time?

 

I make a sort of steroids adjustment the same way I would, for example, of a guy who played in Coors Field.

I don't vote for Palmeiro because I think he was more of a compiler than a great player (if you compare him to other 1bs of his era he doesn't look so great) and the steroid adjustment is enough to push him below the line.

I could probably do the same with McGwire but his adjustment, for now, still leaves him over the line. I may not vote for Sosa on the same basis.

However, guys like Bonds, Piazza, Clemens are so far above the line that even if I ding them they still clear the bar.

(Although I should separate Piazza because I believe, if he used, he probably did his entire career and would not have been at all what he was without them, whereas Bonds and Clemens probably just did it at the end to add to their numbers.)

 

As I read that I realize that people are going to use the word "integrity" and "cheater" and say it shouldn't matter how much their numbers were inflated or what their numbers would have been, because they failed on those grounds.

That's true.

But I don't really care about integrity. I know it's on the ballot, and I take it into consideration, but no one says you have to give equal weight to all of the criteria. If a player murdered someone, I'd consider that a pretty big mark against him in terms of integrity.

Steroids? Meh.

I honestly believe, from covering baseball during this era and talking to a lot of people, that during the days of 1993-2002ish, using steroids was just another part of the game. They were practically encouraged to do it by the teams, and no one stopped them. I think they probably viewed it like driving 80 mph on the freeway. Yes, it's breaking the law, but the cops aren't interested in stopping you and it seems pretty safe, and it gets me there faster!

Finally, there are a lot more important ways in my life I can be a moral compass and stand up for what's right when I'm dealing with stuff that really matters, not whether Barry Bonds gets in the Hall of Fame.

 

As I read that I realize that people are going to use the word "integrity" and "cheater" and say it shouldn't matter how much their numbers were inflated or what their numbers would have been, because they failed on those grounds.

That's true.

But I don't really care about integrity. I know it's on the ballot, and I take it into consideration, but no one says you have to give equal weight to all of the criteria. If a player murdered someone, I'd consider that a pretty big mark against him in terms of integrity.

Steroids? Meh.

I honestly believe, from covering baseball during this era and talking to a lot of people, that during the days of 1993-2002ish, using steroids was just another part of the game. They were practically encouraged to do it by the teams, and no one stopped them. I think they probably viewed it like driving 80 mph on the freeway. Yes, it's breaking the law, but the cops aren't interested in stopping you and it seems pretty safe because everyone else is doing it, and it gets me there faster!

Finally, there are a lot more important ways in my life I can be a moral compass and stand up for what's right when I'm dealing with stuff that really matters, not whether Barry Bonds gets in the Hall of Fame.