HOF Question for DUers - What to do with the Steroid Era Players

[Algernon Moncrieff]

What to do with the players that tested positive for PEDs?

Is what they did better? worse? equivalent to what Pete Rose did? What Shoeless Joe did?

15 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	They should be let in.
	0 (0%)
	They should be in a separate wing of the Hall / let in with an asterisk.
	4 (27%)
	Keep 'em out.
	11 (73%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[True Dough]

1. I say admit 'em with an asterisk

The problem is that there are others in the HoF who are suspected of having committed the same transgression but they just never got caught.

So it's not like the HoF is "pure."

It's not like the "steroid era" has come and gone either. There have been plenty of players getting 80-game suspensions over the past several years.

It's impossible to siphon out all the violators. So we can recognize their accomplishments, but it should be made clear that they used performance enhancing drugs to attain their lofty status.

[Auggie]

2. Keep them out

Steroids provide an advantage. Period.

[Moostache]

3. The Hall of Fame is a kind of joke in the current era...

But my gripe is with the exclusions of Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose, while men like Ty Cobb are enshrined.

The Hall of Fame should reset every 20 years and it should reflect the performance of players in their era regardless of their off-the-field exploits...this does NOT however apply to steroid users. Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, McGwire and the rest are asterisks on their own era and a stain on the competitive continuity of the game in general. Their entire era - where someone like Brady Anderson out of the blue went for 50 HRs in 1990 and never hit more than 24 in any other season of his career - is suspect.

In baseball history, there have been 46 seasons where a player put up 50 Hrs:

Babe Ruth did it 4 times before anyone else in MLB history did it once...Hack Wilson in 1930.
From 1880 to 1950, the feat was achieved just 11 times by just 6 people.
From 1995 to 2007, the feat was achieved 22 times by 14 different players.
From 2008 to 2020, the feat was achieved just 5 times by 5 separate players.
Still above historic rates, but nothing like the steroids era...

70 years to get to 11 times.
12 years to DOUBLE it to 22 times?
That means HRs were being accumulate at the top of the leader's lists at a rate nearly 12X faster than historical average to that time...we know why now, it was the steroids era - 1995 through 2007.


Yes, band-box stadiums, diluted pitching staffs and more emphasis on HRs instead of fundamental baseball contributed to that, and still do today...by not anything like what happened when baseball looked the other way and allowed needle-pumped up behemoths pound them out of the 1994 WS cancellation and falling attendance and ennui in general towards baseball.

I LOVED the game more than anything from the 70's to 1994. It has NEVER recovered for me and I will forever say the players of the steroid era should NEVER be in the current HOF...

[JT45242]

4. I love this question -- complicated and simple at the same time

1. Look only at career before they took steroids -- this allows Barry Bonds into the HOF keeps out Clemens, Pudge, A Rod, Manny Ramirez, Braun etc. as Barry Bonds was the only 450/450 HR/SB in the history of MLB before the roids and already had 3 MVPs, 9 seasons of over 1.0 OPS, and a wall full of golden gloves. (This is my preferred rule)

2. What do you do with the guys who have been implicated but never had their test results leaked -- I am talking about guys like Biggio, Big Papi, Piazza, etc. The Mitchell report ignored the alleged PED use of the Red Sox and the increase in production and the move to super baggy shirts after Manny arrived from Cleveland with the steroid usage he learned from Joey/Albert Belle?

3. Have a steroid era wing... these were the best players of the cheating era. It does give advantages to the pitchers and hitters that cheated but hey -- they already got the real payday from juicing when they played. The extra revenue stream from having HOF next to your name is miniscule compared to some of the steroid induced contracts that were handed out.


Of course -- I would be remiss to not point out the utter hypocrisy of NOMAR -- who looked like Davey Concepcion when he started playing and Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his steroid use. He had the ultimate steroid injury (pulling a muscle from the bone) twice and now talks all high and mighty about steroids without admitting that he and those Sox were rife with it.

[IngridsLittleAngel]

5. Keep them the hell out

They cheated the game. They cheated the history of the game. We're not singing the praises of Ben Johnson, or celebrating what he did in 1988. And watching Bonds sneer and cheat his way to breaking Aaron's record - when we all know what Hank endured on his way to 715 - sickens me to no end.

IF they ever decide they just have to induct Barroid Bonds, Roidger Clemens, Mark McLiar, etc..? Then put them in their own wing, put a giant asterisk on their cap and state on their plaque that they had to use PED's to "achieve" what they did. If it ever comes to that, though, I hope they wait until they're gone to induct them. After what they've done to the game, I don't think they deserve to enjoy the moment.

In my opinion, what they did was worse than Rose did (no evidence he ever bet against the Reds). As for Shoeless Joe, who knows? I lean toward "Didn't take part in the scandal", but, I doubt we'll ever know for sure if he threw games or not. Going back to Pete Rose, though, I've gone from defending him to now deciding he should remained banned for life, that he should be allowed into the Hall after he passes away, and that the last line of his plaque should state "BANNED FROM BASEBALL IN 1989 FOR BETTING ON GAMES."

But Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, McGwire, Ramirez, Palmeiro, etc.. turned the record books into a joke. There's "looking for an edge", and there's taking a flamethrower to the rules. Many of these players turned themselves into walking cartoon characters, putting up video game numbers. The numbers are tainted, an entire era is tainted, and the game still hasn't fully cleaned itself up from this insanity. Not to mention that rewarding cheating only encourages more of it. "If Roger Clemens injected himself to 300 wins and the Hall of Fame, then I might as well do so too!"

So, yes, voters. Please continue to deliver a message by keeping these cheaters out.

[The Polack MSgt]

6. There are reasons to keep all players out.

The early players were sheltered and never had to compete against the best possible players because of the segregated leagues. Those old time hitters faced watered down pitching and the pitchers had hundreds of artificially easy at bats because better hitters were playing in the Negro League

From the day Amphetamines were invented until a few years ago everyone was on speed. The last game of a road trip or an early start after an extra inning night game sure don't hurt ya nearly as bad when the trainer hands out greenies.

All the folks on the keep 'em out train always point to the home run hitters as proof that 'roids ruined the game but when the MLB did that "Anonymous" survey urinalyses most of the positive results were from pitchers.

Punishing the players who did PEDs AFTER the MLB put a rule in place to outlaw their use makes more sense - but that puts an undue burden on some athletes who are perceived as PED users as opposed to those who used and never got looked at the same way.

Either blow up the whole fake ass process or put all the players who dominated their era in the hall.

It's a museum of baseball without the man with the most homeruns, or the man with the most Cy Youngs or the man with the most base hits. (Pete is a scummy human BTW, but if Bart Giamatta hadn't died in office he'd already be in IMHO)

It's a damn joke.

[PAMod]

7. Commissioner Selig, who looked the other way during the ped boom, is in the Hall of Fame.

Also, not everyone blacklisted tested positive for peds.

Testimonial accusation has been enough. Changes in physique have been enough.

Some have even been acquitted in a court of law (featuring sworn testimony & cross examination) but still are blacklisted.

This is not a black/white issue. Lots of gray...

[Capt. America]

8. Do you REALLY want Sosa and Ramirez and A-Roid et al in? I think not.

[kairos12]

9. Keep them out. They cheated the game.