Thanks to Rafael Palmeiro's abject stupidity, baseball is getting dragged through the mud, again. Of course, Raffy's steroid use also drags a few other institutions through the slop, as well. Congress, the Hall of Fame and a Hall of Fame voter or two manage to get tossed under the bus in the wake of Palmeiro's performance enhancement.
Palmeiro's positive test means the United States Congress is probably going to revisit Major League Baseball's steroid policy. This is, of course, crazy. Having our government investigate and police MLB's, or any other sports, drug policy is a ridiculous waste of our tax dollars.
It's also backwards, as I thought Congress wanted MLB to catch steroid users. However, the congressional committee seems annoyed at the fact MLB caught a big name player. Wasn't that what you folks wanted, the league to catch the guys on the juice? So, why then, after nailing Palmeiro are you looking to nail baseball? Sure, the suspension is lighter than most of us want, but they did catch him. Palmeiro's legacy is shot as is his credibility. What more do they want?
If I am to interpret Representative Patrick McHenry's, R-NC, comments correctly, it appears the U.S. Congress wants to oversee the Hall of Fame election process, too. McHenry said "We're talking about the Hall of Fame and whether or not you can be there with Willie Mays and Henry Aaron." I appreciate McHenry's concern for the Hall's current members, but determining who belongs in the Hall isn't the job of Congress. Nor is any of this mess.
Which leads me to part two of the dilemma Palmeiro has created, the Hall of Fame issue. It's no wonder McHenry is concerned about Hall of Fame inclusion for Raffy as, apparently, Jayson Stark doesn't think it's the job of the Baseball Writers Association to figure out who makes the Hall, either. Nope, Stark contends it's not his job to play cop, it's his job to select Hall of Famers based on numbers. This is ridiculous on two points.
First, if Stark thinks it his job to blindly vote for everyone with unquestionable numbers, do we really need him to vote? Honestly, if 3,000 hits gets you in. Period. No debate. Then we can cut Stark and his BBWAA buddies out of the process, can't we? Reach certain milestones, you are in. Don't reach them, sorry, thanks for playing.
It's part of Stark's responsibility as a voter to deliberate each candidate's merits. Stark may not feel it's in his job description to police the sport, but is it asking to much for him to police the institution which he has been entrusted to vote for? I don't think so.
The second problem I have with Stark is that he is either a journalist or a reporter, take your pick. However, when the steroid problem was running rampant in the sport, did Stark or 99% of his buddies, call anyone out? Did or any of his colleagues do any investigative journalism? If they had, would we even be having this discussion now?
Stark apparently didn't feel it was his job to police the league then, just report on-field incidents. Sure, the sport can face it's greatest problem since 1919, but we'll skip that to provide more worthless trivia. (Sorry, that's a cheap shot, but I'm annoyed.)
I'm not saying it would have been easy. I'm not saying that in Stark's shoes I wouldn't have done exactly the same thing, but what I don't understand is how not one of the regular baseball beat guys jumped all over this story. Not one. (Some mild apologies including one to Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post.)
They all knew what was going on or heard the rumors. Yet faced with the greatest controversy since the Black Sox scandal, Pete Rose aside (more on him in a minute), the press opted out of the story. I'm sorry, but I honestly think that it was Stark and his BBWAA brethren's job to report this story. The press always maintains its role is watchdog, so why couldn't any of them break this story?
Stark contends that "It's the sports job to police itself" and that "baseball's police station was a place where the cops sat around, played cards, smoked cigars and let the inmates hit 900-foot home runs." How is that description any different from what Stark and the rest of the baseball media did? Or any different from his opinion of what his responsibility to the Hall of Fame is?
The other Hall of Fame debate Palmeiro has opened up is the comparison between his indiscretion and that of Pete Rose. Again, this argument is an apples to oranges situation. (Someday, I'll elaborate my thoughts on the entire Rose ordeal, but for now, I'll try and stick to it's relevance to Palmeiro.)
The entire era of steroid use is uncharted water for baseball. They have never had to address this kind of high tech performance enhancing issue before. Not only that, but the Players Association, who continues to get off far too lightly in this nightmare they helped perpetuate, made it difficult for MLB to institute a drug policy with any teeth. (Note that the MLBPA still has not responded to Bud Selig's request to up the penalties for positive steroid tests. How many months have Don Fehr and company stalled on this matter?)
Palmeiro, Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and any others rumored to be on the juice couldn't have imagined the consequences. They could not have been able to determine what the league's penalties would be. Sure, they could guess, but it would only be a guess. Rose had no such gray area.
Since 1920, it was clear what the penalty for gambling on baseball was--bet on baseball and you get a lifetime suspension. No exceptions. No escape clauses. No help from the MLBPA. No Hall of Fame. There was a sign on every clubhouse door Rose ever walked through informing him of what would happen. I knew that thirty years ago as a youngster. Rose knew all of that, too. That's why the lies persist.
What Stark, Rose and a number of people need to get hold of is that the Hall of Fame is not a right. It's an honor. If you do something to dishonor the game, you shouldn't expect induction regardless of what your stats look like.
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