Deserving players unrecognized at 2013 Hall of Fame museum

2013 brings a new year, with new aspirations and goals. And most make resolutions based on their health and finances, among other goals.

My personal resolution for the year was to avoid conflict and controversy, make my life and everything in it more simple. But nine days into the new year, we’ve already witnessed heavy controversy in the sport’s world.

A sport I grew up idolizing and fawning over has been turned upside down yet again. For the first time since 1996, not a single player was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Baseball Writers Association of America sent a message to this star-studded ballot that all the indiscretions surrounding these players will not be swept under the carpet. Most notably on this year’s ballot were first-time candidates Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa.

They’ve been referred to as “the Toxic 3” relating to their use/affiliation with baseball’s “Steroid Era.” Clemens received 37.6 percent of the votes; Bonds was right behind with 36.2 percent of votes. Sosa brought up the rear with a mere 12.5 percent of HOF votes.

Needing to garner 75 percent of voters’ approval, Craig Biggio, a lifetime Houston Astro and member of the illustrious 3,000 hit club, led this year’s class with 68.2 percent.

There was a time when any of the following categories gave a player an automatic pass to the Hall: 500 home runs, 300 wins or 3,000 hits. With the virus that the steroid era brought America’s pastime, it has left a cloud over the game that hasn’t yet parted.

This most recent HOF vote proves that. So if a class this loaded can’t get in based on performances between the lines, what will? Bonds, regardless of his connection to performance-enhancing drugs, is the all-time home run king and won seven MVP awards.

Clemens recorded 354 wins, a record seven Cy Young awards along with an MVP of his own sitting on his mantel. Yet neither of the two are able to shake the past, nor should they be allowed to.

If one of the criteria involves integrity, which apparently Bonds and Clemens both disregarded, then the choice for them is obvious. Sammy Sosa, with 609 career home runs, gained 12 percent of writers’ votes. In other words, any chance he has of crossing the threshold at Cooperstown is bleak.

Same for Rafael Palmeiro, one of only four players to hit 500 home runs and 3,000 hits (two of the standards previously mentioned as “automatic bids”), whose support slid below 9 percent.

The Hall of Fame has become a shrine. It is no longer the museum recognizing the iconic players of the past. Never mind the fact that steroids were never linked to Biggio, Tim Raines or Jeff Bagwell. And never mind the fact that for some reason, players such as Jack Morris and Lee Smith again were snubbed. And in what’s become a yearly ritual, the speculation continued if and/or when Pete Rose will ever be let in. The writers used this ballot as a platform.

I am all for sending a message to players who were linked and proven to have used PEDs. But to snub the non-steroid users, including Curt Schilling who is arguably the best postseason pitcher of all time? It’s wrong. Plain and simple, the writers got this year wrong.

If this is the lone year where the BBWAA just could not look past the candidates’ baggage, I’ll get past it. However, if a new precedent has been set for who is deserving enough to be elected, Cooperstown is no longer the transcendent landing spot for the best of the best.

Advocate Staff