Stop me when I say something you've heard before, but people in charge of making important decisions in baseball made a mistake. I know, they do it every year. The most recent example came on Wednesday when the BBWAA decided to hold their collective breath and not elect anyone into the Hall of Fame. While I may disagree, I understand wanting to hold out known or highly suspected cheaters, but I can't make sense of why they would hold back clean players with Hall of Fame caliber numbers.
If it was up to me, I'd vote based only on numbers unless there are proven failed drug tests; I wouldn't hold anyone out based soley on suspicion. Steroid and HGH abuse was wide spread for over a decade, it's impossible to know for sure who was and who wasn't using performance enhancers. Did some guys hit more runs because they were juiced up, of course, but they probably hit a few of those home runs off of pitchers who were also on PED's. There's just no way to know for sure, so why get involved in an impossible guessing game? Every era of the game has it flaws that effect numbers. From the dead ball era, to spit balls, to not allowing black players in the league; steroid use is our era. They didn't keep out Gaylord Perry who cheated with spit balls. They didn't keep out pitchers who benefitted from the dead ball era. They shouldn't be keeping out players who haven't been proven to have cheated.
So instead of at least putting in one of the few guys with Hall of Fame numbers and no suspicion of cheating, they messed up that too. Their job is to decide what level of stats and numbers merit getting into the Hall of Fame and then vote players in who meet those criteria. Their job is not puff their chest out and make the process about themselves instead of the players. The people who left their ballot blank aren't going to change the game. No one cares about your inflated ego or your holier than thou attitude about what should be done in the sport. If they're not capable of doing their job, especially the guys who don't even cover the sport anymore, they need to be replaced.
Craig Biggio should have been voted in this year; the stats are obvious to me.
- Seven-time All-Star (At two positions)
- Four-time Gold Glove winner
- Ranks 21st on all-time hit list (3,060)
- Ranks 5th on all-time doubles list (668)
- Ranks 15th on all-time runs scored list (1,844)
- 291 home runs/414 steals
There simply isn't a valid reason to keep him out. The writers voted on others reasons beside how well these guys played the game. Shame on you baseball writers, you failed.
