Maddux, Glavine, Thomas elected to Baseball Hall of Fame; Biggio just misses

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Exactly right.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

I agree with this. If this issue is integrity, you shouldn't let the greenie guys in. If the issue is the inflation of stats from steroids, which obviously do more than greenies, then you ought to only exclude the borderline guys (Palmeiro) and still let in the ones whose numbers are so far over the line (Bonds, Clemens) that they'd be in even if you adjusted their performance without the PEDs.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Can't remember who said it (probably a lot of people by now), but:

"The players I like did greenies, the players I don't like did steroids."

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Color me shocked that a stat head like Neyer is supporting the PED cause. That community has done countless good for the game and how we understand it. But its continuing, dogmatic cheer leading for steroids and tge heroic men who pumped themselves full of them is a black mark.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

The latter point you make sums up how I feel. I believe Palmeiro, on the whole, is Hall of Good but not Hall of Fame. I don't believe that about Bonds and Clemens, as their paces and consistency throughout the bulk of their careers make them HOFers.

And it's the latter point which has made me torn on McGwire. His career had a strong start, then he slumped toward the middle of his career, but then suddenly surged back. I look at that pattern and keep asking myself this: When McGwire hit his slump, was he truly destined to bounce back, PEDs or not, or was he going to follow a career path similar to Jose Canseco, who nobody argues for the HOF, and not solely because he used steroids.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Greenies were an accepted part of the game's culture. Like bumming a Vicodin off of someone. Steroids have long, long been stigmatized in sports. Pretending that baseball players didn't understand this by 1998 is simply revisionist history.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Some of the "greenies" players were using were diet pills from their wife's prescription. There's a difference between a hangover helper and something that actually increases your cap and shoe size.

Was there ever -- ever? -- a player who developed a dependency on greenies?

Greenies? Think a couple of Red Bulls.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

FWIW, it's not so much that McGwire slumped in the middle of his career, he had back-to-back years when he simply wasn't healthy. He had a combined 279 plate appearances in 1993-94.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Yeah, he had plantar fasciitis, the same injury that ended Albert Pujols' 2013 season and severely curtailed Yao Ming's career.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

He also batted no better than .235 three consecutive seasons from '89 to '91, falling to .201 in '91. It wasn't just the injuries.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

You're right, amphetamines have never damaged peoples lives. Those diet pills they were taking would now get them suspended.

They took so they could play, it's the a performance enhancer any which way you want to look at it.

Who are these guys who got addicted to steroids?

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

I don't know why you keep trying to advocate this point. There is no "cheerleading" for steroids in the statistical community, and there never has been. There is, however, widespread indifference to PEDs of all kinds, especially when it comes to historical evaluation in the pre-testing era.

Statheads simply don't care who was using what and when. They don't care. "Cheerleading" for PEDs implies that Neyer and Co. were/are rooting for Bonds to hit 90 home runs instead of 73. No one was doing that (except maybe delusional Giants fans.)