The latest round of voting for the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame (HOF) was announced recently, and the results once again prompted a great deal of opposing opinions by fans and members of the voting panel alike. Actually, for me the more interesting interaction has not been between fans and writers on the voting panel, but rather, the war of words between fellow voters. In particular, there is a wide divergence of views on how to assess the candidacies of players who have some proven or rumored connection to the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs).
Buster Olney, a baseball writer whose work I respect, wrote the following article that I find to be of interest and hope you will, too. As you’ll see, Olney says he will not rule a candidate out on the basis of that candidate’s PED use.
For a different perspective, please see this article by Wallace Matthews of ESPN New York. The author points to Rule 5 of the HOF voting process, and notes that if one is to take the electoral process of the HOF seriously, then certain intangibles must be considered. Those intangibles, wrapped together, would describe an ethical competitor.
Each writer makes good points. Which side do you favor?
In that regard, let’s take a look at Rule 5 in the HOF voting process. That rule says:
“Voting shall be based upon:
- The player’s record
- Playing ability
- Integrity
- Sportsmanship
- Character, and
- Contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.”
The Baseball Writers’ Association of America conducts the voting, and SF Chronicle columnist Susan Slusser is the president of that association. Slusser wrote this article in preparation for the 2013 voting, and you can see her concern with items 3, 4 and 5 from the list above. Interestingly, the voters did not select any candidates for entrance into the HOF last year, and nobody with any PED connection, rumored or proven, was selected this year.
What do you think? Should we equate the use of PEDs in the last 25 years to the acknowledged widespread use of amphetamines (“greenies”) in MLB in the 1950s, 60s and 70s? Should we cut some slack for players who appeared to be on track for the HOF prior to their acknowledged or rumored PED use? Should we take the position that virtually everyone was using PEDs in what has come to be known as “the Steroid Era” and simply say that we’ll vote for the best of that era no matter if they were proven to have used PEDs or not?
Or, if you were a voter, would you look closely at items 3, 4 and 5 on the list of criteria for selection and attempt to analyze each candidate’s credentials with respect to those items? It seems to me that if one does consider those three items seriously, it is more difficult to make a case for acknowledged PED users, and perhaps even rumored PED users. Of course, it is no secret that there are members of the HOF whose careers did not exemplify the values of integrity, sportsmanship and character. Should that matter?
I’ve heard baseball analysts debate this question:
Is the HOF meant to be a museum or a cathedral? If it’s a museum, the argument goes, then we can’t keep out Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens, arguably the most dominant hitter and pitcher, respectively, of the steroid era. If the HOF is actually meant to be a cathedral, the argument continues, then it would make more sense to exclude the players about whom we have questions, such as Bonds and Clemens.
Part of the problem for fans today is the overwhelming amount of information available to us about professional athletes. For example, when I was a boy, Mickey Mantle was considered by his fans to be a saint. Then, with the passage of time and the emergence of more information about The Mick, it was apparent that he was simply a flawed human like the rest of us, albeit with tremendous athletic ability. Professional athletes today are under scrutiny from day one. There is little left to shock us short of violent crime, which of course we’ve seen lately as well with professional athletes.
So where do you come out on this? If you were a HOF voter, would you ignore PED connections (rumored or proven) and focus entirely on the numbers, or would you consider the ethical overtones of items 3, 4 and 5 of Rule 5?
Please contact me at mgilleran@scu.edu. Thanks.