BBWAA: Mark McGwire died for your sins

I think there's been a school-of-thought that suggests baseball beat writers should have been on the steroid beat from the get-go. But it doesn't make sense to me. Along with the day-to-day work (gamers, siders, notes, features, advances, trade rumors) when, exactly, would the beat writer have the time to investigate a Mark McGwire or a Sammy Sosa or a Raffy Palmerio? Look at the great investigative series pieces in recent memory. They've all been written and reported by people who have had time to devote working the story/stories.

I'm not that flexible.

Congrats, buddy.

 

Burden of proof remains on you. Take the "reasonable voter" angle and throw it out, because it's the same one that says, "just use common sense." Sorry, that's not good enough.

HARD, ROCK-SOLID PROOF. You're talking about someone's reputation here. You have to provide that.

 

There is no burden of proof in this case. This isn't a criminal prosecution. If you personally think that there is enough proof for you to not vote for him, than you shouldn't. Apparently, 75% of the voters feel that way. Not getting into the Hall isn't punishment, it is simply withholding reward.

 

I could get really DyePack here. All I can do is point to the last two sentences of my previous point.

If you're not putting him in because he was a .201 hitter part of the time, that's one thing.

If you're denying him because you "know in your heart" that he cheated, that's something else.

 

It would be really stupid not to put him in just for his sometimes low batting averages. Over his career, it was average for a slugger, and sometimes it was even above .300. His power numbers are the best in history in many categories, though.
Career at bats per HR: 10.6 (1st)
Single season at bats per HR: 7.27 (2nd)
50 HR seasons: 4 (1st)
Least at bats to get to 400 HRs and 500

 

.263 career average. But that's not the debate here.

 

Implication = guilt. Right.

 

Reggie Jackson has a .262 lifetime BA

 

In his grand jury testimony, didn't Bonds acknowledge using the cream and the clear that was provided to him by his trainer (who, I believe, admitted as much in his testimony), though he said he thought it was something else at the time?

That sounds like proof to me.

 

We've gone to War on less proof. Hell, if Bonds were white and from Duke, he'd be under the jail by now.

 

'Yab those books were bullshit because the premise for those kind of books almost ALWAYS is bullshit. (Please save me forever from people looking for their lost innocence.) The subsequent revelations just sharpened the focus a bit, that's all.