Monday, May 11, 2009
Ped and the Hall of Fame
As many people know, Manny Ramirez was suspended for violating MLB substance abuse policy, and this raised up the continuing question of how to handle
suspected PED users in the HOF. I know that the writers have their own definition of what is acceptable or not for their vote and it's different for every
voter.
My argument is that on the whole we already do era adjustments, we know that minorities didn't play until the 50's, that the homerun era didn't start
until Babe Ruth, that the pitcher had some dominance in the 60's, different rules prior to 1890 etc. So when someone says that Ty Cobb only has 117
homeruns, it doesn't detract from how good he was as a player. We know that pitchers pitch fewer innings today than in the past, that bullpens get more
appearances etc. It is part of the era that an individual player played.
If the writers do a good job of chronicling the debates and question the
questionable, then the era should be known for what it was, which is now being commonly referred to as the steroid era. MLB has in place a system now to
reduce users, but at the same time, the league, fans, writers and players union didn't care about the taint of roids, and to go back and to try and
retroactively make a judgement penalty is disingenious in my opinion. And in Mannys case it's even worse since he is already being penalized by MLB. As you
can probably tell, my viewpoint is that it's too late to make a judgement on situations that are completed. MLB, the writers, fans and players need to focus
on getting rid of the problem, and acknowledge that it was just a different era. As a rough rule, there have been about 20 hofers playing in every season of
baseball, and trying to ignore an entire era you are going to miss out on a lot of players who probably deserve to be in the hof, even if they did cheat. I
mean Gaylord Perry is celebrated for his cheating, to the point he gets a book deal and nobody kept him out of the hall.
I understand having different points
of view on how to vote on a suspected PED user, but for the voter to automatically not consider an eligible candidate due to some misplaced sense of outrage,
overrates the importance of the voter on the election process. As a voter, you get to vote on the eligible players, it's not your job to determine who is
eligible. The Hof changed the rules to keep out Pete Rose and retroactively changed the rules on Joe Jackson to maintain their level of integrity, another
level shouldn't be decided by the writers.
Of course this doesn't mean that you ignore it, there is a character traits as part of the ballot, and that should be a factor in your voting, but a voter
should not base their entire case on just one criteria, especially when there is no conclusive evidence. And in case of Manny and others who have served
suspensions, the suspension(lost of games, and potentially loss of money) is already MLB applying what they felt is an appropriate penalty, so even though
it's not a court of law, double jeopardy should still apply.
For the record, I didn't go to the trouble of figuring exact years on my era comments, and I do realize that Babe Ruth isn't the only reason that offense
increased after 1920 (Ray Chapman anyone)
suspected PED users in the HOF. I know that the writers have their own definition of what is acceptable or not for their vote and it's different for every
voter.
My argument is that on the whole we already do era adjustments, we know that minorities didn't play until the 50's, that the homerun era didn't start
until Babe Ruth, that the pitcher had some dominance in the 60's, different rules prior to 1890 etc. So when someone says that Ty Cobb only has 117
homeruns, it doesn't detract from how good he was as a player. We know that pitchers pitch fewer innings today than in the past, that bullpens get more
appearances etc. It is part of the era that an individual player played.
If the writers do a good job of chronicling the debates and question the
questionable, then the era should be known for what it was, which is now being commonly referred to as the steroid era. MLB has in place a system now to
reduce users, but at the same time, the league, fans, writers and players union didn't care about the taint of roids, and to go back and to try and
retroactively make a judgement penalty is disingenious in my opinion. And in Mannys case it's even worse since he is already being penalized by MLB. As you
can probably tell, my viewpoint is that it's too late to make a judgement on situations that are completed. MLB, the writers, fans and players need to focus
on getting rid of the problem, and acknowledge that it was just a different era. As a rough rule, there have been about 20 hofers playing in every season of
baseball, and trying to ignore an entire era you are going to miss out on a lot of players who probably deserve to be in the hof, even if they did cheat. I
mean Gaylord Perry is celebrated for his cheating, to the point he gets a book deal and nobody kept him out of the hall.
I understand having different points
of view on how to vote on a suspected PED user, but for the voter to automatically not consider an eligible candidate due to some misplaced sense of outrage,
overrates the importance of the voter on the election process. As a voter, you get to vote on the eligible players, it's not your job to determine who is
eligible. The Hof changed the rules to keep out Pete Rose and retroactively changed the rules on Joe Jackson to maintain their level of integrity, another
level shouldn't be decided by the writers.
Of course this doesn't mean that you ignore it, there is a character traits as part of the ballot, and that should be a factor in your voting, but a voter
should not base their entire case on just one criteria, especially when there is no conclusive evidence. And in case of Manny and others who have served
suspensions, the suspension(lost of games, and potentially loss of money) is already MLB applying what they felt is an appropriate penalty, so even though
it's not a court of law, double jeopardy should still apply.
For the record, I didn't go to the trouble of figuring exact years on my era comments, and I do realize that Babe Ruth isn't the only reason that offense
increased after 1920 (Ray Chapman anyone)
