Cheaters in their midst
Rafael Palmeiro was suspended 10 games after testing positive for steroid use (although it wasn't the only performancing-enhancing drug he was using). This was the same guy whose emphatic, finger-pointing denial at Congressional steroid hearings was one of the highlights of the players' testimony. Who last week recorded his 3,000th hit, who has 569 career home runs. We were debating last week whether his stats make him a Hall of Fame-lock; now we're discussing whether his confirmed steroid use and dishonest testimony (but not perjury) should keep him out.
The Baseball Hall of Fame, the most revered shrine in sports, is full of gamblers, racists, womanizers, and alcoholics. Babe Ruth was all of the above. Ty Cobb was a terrible person on and off the field. Gaylord Perry was a loud and proud cheater who scuffed balls, coated them with Vaseline, and hocked spitballs on his way to 300 wins. All of them are in the Hall. But Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson, two of the all-time greats, are out. Why?
Rose gambled on baseball, but denies he ever bet on his own team. Jackson conspired to fix the 1919 World Series, precipitating a crisis that almost killed the sport in its infancy. The dividing line between a lifetime ban (and ineligibilty for election to the Hall of Fame) and a free pass has been whether the infraction affected the outcome of games. In Perry's case, it did, but given baseball's long history of trying to pick up a slight edge through equipment "modification", the higher-ups let it go. Jackson, and allegedly Rose, knowingly and intentionally altered the outcome of games not by cheating at the game itself but for reasons outside the lines. For that, they deserved to be banned.
The steroid era doesn't quite fit into either category. On one hand, they've done serious damage to baseball's public image and created an unlevel playing field for non-users--you wouldn't put a guy in the Hall of Fame for hitting 500 home runs with an aluminum bat. On one hand, until the new testing agreement, they seemed to be treated as within the standard of "getting an edge" that baseball has let slide (although I'm still of the opinion that the users were essentially using a corked bat every trip to the plate). So I suppose you can't keep Palmeiro out of the Hall of Fame any more than you can Mark McGwire for everything pre-August 1, 2005. As Jayson Stark argues, steroids weren't banned by baseball until last year, so chemically-enhanced achievements that were accomplished before the testing regime and suspensions started, while dubious achievements, shouldn't disqualify someone from election. But now they are illegal. Not only does Raffy's bust cast greater doubt on his stats, it means he knowingly violated an established standard of sports integrity and that he lied (or at least grossly misrepresented himself) under oath to a Congressional panel. Which makes him more like Pete Rose than Gaylord Perry.
He was probably a marginal Hall of Famer before this scandal; with the chemically-inflated stats of the 1990s, his hits and homers don't stand out enough to make it automatic. Ignoring the suggestion that we might discount his numbers for playing in the live-ball/steroid era, we are now obliged to discount them because we know for a fact he was using drugs. We all have an idea that Sammy Sosa's juiced too, but until he gets caught, we have to grant him an assumption of, if not innocence, non-guilt, and not hold his inflated stats against him. If he makes it through his career without getting busted, he's in for sure. Steroids are now illegal in baseball, and the new policy will out the users; Palmeiro knew this, and was still juicing. He's done terrible damage to baseball and himself. We shouldn't enshrine an outed cheater in sports' most sacred club.
The Baseball Hall of Fame, the most revered shrine in sports, is full of gamblers, racists, womanizers, and alcoholics. Babe Ruth was all of the above. Ty Cobb was a terrible person on and off the field. Gaylord Perry was a loud and proud cheater who scuffed balls, coated them with Vaseline, and hocked spitballs on his way to 300 wins. All of them are in the Hall. But Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson, two of the all-time greats, are out. Why?
Rose gambled on baseball, but denies he ever bet on his own team. Jackson conspired to fix the 1919 World Series, precipitating a crisis that almost killed the sport in its infancy. The dividing line between a lifetime ban (and ineligibilty for election to the Hall of Fame) and a free pass has been whether the infraction affected the outcome of games. In Perry's case, it did, but given baseball's long history of trying to pick up a slight edge through equipment "modification", the higher-ups let it go. Jackson, and allegedly Rose, knowingly and intentionally altered the outcome of games not by cheating at the game itself but for reasons outside the lines. For that, they deserved to be banned.
The steroid era doesn't quite fit into either category. On one hand, they've done serious damage to baseball's public image and created an unlevel playing field for non-users--you wouldn't put a guy in the Hall of Fame for hitting 500 home runs with an aluminum bat. On one hand, until the new testing agreement, they seemed to be treated as within the standard of "getting an edge" that baseball has let slide (although I'm still of the opinion that the users were essentially using a corked bat every trip to the plate). So I suppose you can't keep Palmeiro out of the Hall of Fame any more than you can Mark McGwire for everything pre-August 1, 2005. As Jayson Stark argues, steroids weren't banned by baseball until last year, so chemically-enhanced achievements that were accomplished before the testing regime and suspensions started, while dubious achievements, shouldn't disqualify someone from election. But now they are illegal. Not only does Raffy's bust cast greater doubt on his stats, it means he knowingly violated an established standard of sports integrity and that he lied (or at least grossly misrepresented himself) under oath to a Congressional panel. Which makes him more like Pete Rose than Gaylord Perry.
He was probably a marginal Hall of Famer before this scandal; with the chemically-inflated stats of the 1990s, his hits and homers don't stand out enough to make it automatic. Ignoring the suggestion that we might discount his numbers for playing in the live-ball/steroid era, we are now obliged to discount them because we know for a fact he was using drugs. We all have an idea that Sammy Sosa's juiced too, but until he gets caught, we have to grant him an assumption of, if not innocence, non-guilt, and not hold his inflated stats against him. If he makes it through his career without getting busted, he's in for sure. Steroids are now illegal in baseball, and the new policy will out the users; Palmeiro knew this, and was still juicing. He's done terrible damage to baseball and himself. We shouldn't enshrine an outed cheater in sports' most sacred club.
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