On The Record: Cooperstown no place for cheats

For several years while working at a downstate New York newspaper I covered hundreds of major league baseball games. It was enough to qualify for membership in the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA).

Membership includes voting rights for the sport’s annual awards with the most prestigious being the right to participate in the annual Hall of Fame balloting, and this year’s Hall of Fame class will be released on Jan. 8.

For whatever reason, I never joined.

Former Record sportswriter Mike Dyer, a colleague and friend for more than 35 years, is a member of BBWAA and does indeed participate as a Hall of Fame voter.

Mike has strong opinions, including ones on his Hall of Fame selections.

Just because I don’t have voting rights doesn’t mean I don’t have similarly strong beliefs who should join baseball’s “immortals” in Cooperstown.

If nothing else, our opinions, which greatly differ, are grounds for a good debate. And, there’s nothing better to stir the blood on a cold winter’s morn than a good sports argument.

First, our “votes” in the Hall of Fame balloting this year … Mike’s are official, mine are merely opinions.

Mike’s ballot, that he graciously shared with me, includes: Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Mike Piazza, Frank Thomas, Rafael Palmiero, Edgar Martinez, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Tim Raines and Larry Walker.

My choices: Craig Biggio, Greg Maddux, Frank Thomas, and Tom Glavine.

Clearly, I’m a little more judicious about who I’d let get past the hallowed doors of the Cooperstown shrine without having to pay admission.

Mike and I primarily disagree about whether PED-tarnished players should ever get into the Hall.

Mike thinks they should. I think they should not.

Yet, players enhanced their personal statistics by using PEDs. The argument can be made that many, many ballplayers used whatever drug of choice during the so-called “steroid era” and went undetected.

It creates the issue that, maybe, statistics compiled by PED users aren’t over inflated since they came from playing against other PED users.

But, performance enhancing drugs are illegal. It’s my opinion that those proven to have used them, or very clearly to have been associated with them, do not deserve to be in the Hall.

Past balloting, by members of the BBWAA, indicates that my opinion is in the majority.

Players must be named on 75 percent of ballots cast to gain the Hall. Players like Bonds (only 36.2 percent of ballots cast last year) and Clemens (37.6 percent last year) almost assuredly won’t ever get voted into the Hall by the BBWAA without a significant philosophical voting change.

Without the stain of PED, though, there isn’t any doubt that Bonds, the sport’s all-time home run leader; and Clemens, with 354 career victories (ninth on the all-time list) and a record seven Cy Young Awards, would be near-unanimous selections.

Instead … well, they have to pay their $19.50 admission fee for adults to get into the Hall, just like you and me.

I’m not giving them a Hall pass like Mike has done.

That means my unofficial ballot doesn’t include Clemens, Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sosa or Palmiero.

It does, however, include Biggio who was bypassed last year, his first year of eligibility (68.2 percent of votes cast). Biggio said he believes he didn’t get into the Hall last year because he was on the ballot for the first time with a number of confirmed steroid users.

Still, there has never been a hint that Biggio ever used PEDs, and he does have the magic number of 3,000 hits (3,060). That’s 21st-best all time.

He also ranks 15th on the career list for runs, 32nd for extra-base hits and 66th for stolen bases. Most of those numbers come from longevity. But, most were also accrued either as a catcher or middle infielder, positions where that sort of longevity and those type of numbers are rare. And, Hall of Fame worthy.

As for my other “yes” votes …

Glavine had the magic-number 300 pitching victories, a 305-203 career record. He also has two Cy Young awards, led the National League in victories five times and was named to 10 all-star teams.

Maddux, surprisingly, only won 20 games in a season twice. But, he was measurably better than Glavine, a teammate for many years. He won four Cy Young awards, his 355 career victories rank eighth all time and he won 15 or more games, at one point, for 17 consecutive seasons.

Thomas had a career 301 batting average and 521 home runs, 18th-most all time..He won two MVP awards and his 1704 career RBI is 22nd all time. He was unquestionably “clean,” and one of the first players to speak publicly against steroid use.

Piazza is probably the toughest to leave off the list. But, in his upcoming autobiography, he admits to having used Androstmedione, or “Andro.”

When he used, Andro was not illegal (there was no drug policy at the time), but it is now. And, it most certainly helped enhance his strength and, ultimately, his performance.

So, thumbs down here on Piazza, who goes down in history with Johnny Bench and Yogi Berra as probably the three best hitting catchers of all time.

Raines and Jeff Kent are also difficult omissions.

Kent never led the NL in a single offensive category in any season. Yet, he’s the all-time HR leader for second-basemen with 351 while playing that position.

Raines is No. 5 on the all-time stolen base list with 809.

But, I never had the impression either was ever even the best player on each’s own team in any season, let alone Hall of Fame worthy.

My belief is that the Hall is reserved for the all-time greats.

The Hall’s first-ever class, 1936, saw Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson and Honors Wagner elected.

That’s baseball immortality. Players like Raines, Kent and PED users don’t measure up.

Feel free to disagree. I already know that Mike Dyer does.

Steve Amedio’s column appears every Wednesday and Sunday in The Record. He can be reached at hoopscribe1@aol.com