McGwire Denied
 

McGwire left out of this years inductees:

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6...T=HCP&GT1=9012

Awesome

:clap:

Bonds should get in, but McGuire should not.

Bonds was a 1st ballot HOFer prior to his roided up homerun streak.

McGuire was not.

And Merriman's in the Pro Bowl

This is my view.....we don't really know who did roids or not, if you don't vote for someone because you think they were on roids that means you shouldn't vote for anyone from this era.

Be consistent....I'm sure it won't work that way but that's what I think, you either vote for the best players from the era or none at all.

One of the writers did just that. He turned in a blank ballot because he felt like he shouldn't vote for anyone without knowing all the information. He cost Ripken and Gwynn their chance at being the first ever unanimous choices.

He was as one dimentional as they come. Good at that homerun hitter, but atleast bonds walked stole a billion bases and had like 10 gold gloves

Good!

I may be a hater, but I don't like the idea of Bonds getting in either. It's basically a fact that he's used roids. But what I hate is his and the others lying about it and acting like they don't have to answer to anybody. I mean one of the biggest reasons that Rose can't get in is because he lied and continued to lie about his betting.

Baseball writers see themselfs as caretakers of the game. Historians etc. McGuire as not admitted taking steriods, never been convicted or indicted for taking steriods. Steriod use was legal in baseball during that time anyway.

If you are going to go off rumor and assumption or make moral judgement on individuals instead of their on the field accomplishments you are on a slippery slope.
Moral issue?
Ty Cobb was big time racist. You going to leave him in the HOF? Babe Ruth fooled around on his wife in every city.
Performance enhancement?
Large number of players have addmitted that they(including Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle) took "greenies" speed in the 50's and 60's on a daily basis. They admit to it. You going to take them out of the HOF?

The Baseball Writers Association is so full of themeselves. I wish there was another process of voting players into the Hall.

I am not saying MacGuire should get in but this whole selection process is idiotic. One writer, Paul Ladewski, puts in a blank ballot to insure that no current player will ever get in a unanimous since Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb didn't. His theory was since no one in the post modern era was never choosen on unanimous in the first ballot, that the modern players should not either. But he would probably vote to put them in on the second or third if they are still up for vote. (This is paraphrased from his interview on Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio.)

The idea for the interview was brought from Mr. Ladewski's column below.
http://www.dailysouthtown.com/sports...81LAD2.article

I think having an interstate named after you is much bigger than being in the HOF anyway.

There are people in the HOF that did far worse things that roids......it's very hypocritical.

I'm not a baseball fan so I consider myself an incredibly unbiased person.

When hating minorities and infidelity help you hit homeruns you can make judgements on Cobb and Ruth.

I don't think you can revoke player membership in the hall but they certain can (and likely will) hold future inductees out based on performance enhancing drug use.

The slipperiest slope is the legality of it. If steroids were legal in baseball (but illegal in all 50 states) how do you make a judgement? The whole situation is ridiculous. The Hall needs to make a decision and a mandate to voting writers. If the writers can't comply then get rid of them.

My point exactly.
At least say from this point on we are going to make moral judgments on your charecter along with your on the field accomplishments. But we are also not going to go back and use that moral judgment on the people already in. They get grandfathered in.

What about all the players in the 50's and 60's admitting that they took speed on a daily basis. Isn't speed a performance enhancer?

I don't know where the line is drawn only that a line needs to be established so the Hall doesn't have 50 writers imposing their 50 different opinions on the voting process.

I don't care where the line is, only that one needs to be established.

I basically think the roids thing shouldn't matter seeing as it's pretty much a common belief that all the players that are going to be considered for the HOF were doing them......

Also they weren't against baseballs rules, that's baseballs fault, it doesn't give a writer a job to go "oh well I think this is wrong" and then start policing things.

I think its a shame that the selection of outstanding players like Ripken and Gwynn will be overshadowed by the steroids controversy.

And throwing a baseball at someone's head is battery in all 50 states but legal in MLB....


Look, I'm not a McGwire guy at all, but to say that he was using stuff that others didn't is completely asinine.

And FWIW, McGwire also drew a lot of walks, so the guy who used that as an argument is completely full of shit, stupid and/or uninformed.

I would have voted him in. I think it's bullshit that he didn't get in. The stuff he admitted to using was legal at the time. McGwire and Sosa simply saved baseball from the strike.

I have no great love for McGwire, but I think he'll get into the Hall eventually. Even though they were roided to the gills, Mac and Sosa did a great deal for the game by restoring interest lost after the strike.

Unfortunately, Mac never really did much for the Cardinals. Sure he hit his dingers, but he damn sure wasn't clutch, and the Cards didn't do jack shit while he was in St. Louis. In fact, at the end, he was the biggest liability on the team and an absolute guaranteed out.

But even at his best, he couldn't hold Pujols' jock.

This writer says you must confess your sins before admission into the hall:
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6351322

This writer submitted a blank ballot because he doesn't know who took steriods and who didn't.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6351216

Caple off of ESPN:
Mark McGwire Be honest. You figured he was on the juice back in 1998 when you were genuflecting at his feet. So why act so hot and bothered about it now just because everyone else is so bent out of shape? ETA: He'll get in the same year sportswriters decide to stop being pompous, self-righteous and sanctimonious.

Stark on ESPN:
There are a million reasons not to vote for McGwire. But of all the reasons people have dredged up lately, the one I find most amazing is the revisionist history that he wasn't that good -- except for those four years (1996-99) when he morphed into Babe Ruth.

Well, hold on. Ask any scout who saw him at USC, and they'll all tell you the same thing: This guy was a big-time masher from the day he was drafted until the day he quit. If it took Jose Canseco's magic potion to make him any good, how come he had a .618 slugging percentage in his rookie season? Andruw Jones, Adam Dunn and Jeff Kent have never slugged .618 in any season, if that tells you anything. And if McGwire wasn't any good until 1996, how did he manage to put up six seasons with at least 32 homers and 90 RBI in his seven healthy seasons before that? That's as many seasons of 32-90 as Chipper Jones and Moises Alou have, combined. If he wasn't any good, how did this man make 12 All-Star teams -- as many as Mike Schmidt? If he wasn't any good, why did he collect MVP votes in every healthy season of his career except one?

The other shaky argument here is that McGwire just had one song on his jukebox, that all he could do was hit home runs, kind of like Dave Kingman. But if he was so one-dimensional, how did he win a Gold Glove? How did he compile that .394 career on-base percentage? And even if he had just one superior dimension, he had the best home run ratio of any player who ever lived (one every 10.6 at-bats). So if people want to vote against him to make a steroid statement, I understand that. But arguing that he didn't have a Hall of Fame career? That one doesn't compute.

So, so true. Any cards fan will admit that they wanted him nowhere near the plate during the 2001 LDS against the Diamondbacks. He was horrendous.

I doubt it. These writers have long memories.

Yep, I don't think any Cardinal fans on here hold him in much high esteem. He hit homers but he just didn't help the team that much. And yes...........

even at his best, Mac couldn't hold Pujols' jock.

The only two deserving guys on that ballot got in.

From an article on Sportsline:

Don't tell me that anabolic steroids weren't against baseball's rules in '98, so the players all have Get Out Of Jail Free cards from that period. Anabolic steroids were -- and are -- against the federal law. It's not clearly spelled out in baseball's rulebook that the cleanup hitter can't strangle the batboy to death in the dugout, either.

Do you think that needs to be covered in the rules?

McGwire and his fellow Bash (The Integrity of the Game) Brothers have dishonored the sport by dragging it into the worst scandal since the 1919 Black Sox.

They have twisted some of the game's most treasured numbers into an indecipherable maze of voodoo statistics largely devoid of meaning and context.

They have turned on the game's most important natural resource -- Little Leaguers, high schoolers and college players -- to a whole medicine's chest worth of dangerous unnatural resources that can be harmful or, at worse, fatal.

The Hall of Fame asks its voters to judge "based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played."

But we're here, and just because the players and owners abdicated their responsibility to act in the game's best interest 10 or 15 years ago -- by failing to install anti-steroid measures then, rather than waiting until a couple of years ago -- doesn't mean everybody else should lay down, too.

Bottom line is: It is never too late to do the right thing.

And the right thing here is obvious.

The Hall of Fame never has been a place reserved only for altar boys and Rhodes Scholars.

But neither should it be a safe house for lawless players who spit at baseball history, brush aside the notion of integrity and employ situation ethics to cheat their way up the ladder past Roger Maris, Babe Ruth and, soon enough, Henry Aaron.

And those who bring Hall of Famer and noted spitballer Gaylord Perry into the equation right about now? That's a completely disingenuous comparison, misdemeanor vs. felony. Last time we checked, Vaseline wasn't an illegal substance. Doctoring the baseball, stealing signs ... things that occur on the field, opponents and umpires at least have a fighting chance to catch the perpetrators.

Not so with those who disappear inside of a bathroom stall, or into a dark alley, with the Jose Cansecos of the world, a needle and a bottle of get-rich-quick.

Don't confuse gamesmanship and bending baseball's rules with blatant white-collar crime.

Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were the toasts of the town once, too. Enron was a model company and everyone was making gobs of money.

Then the closet door opened and the skeletons tumbled out.

Do you think Lay and Skilling should have walked when their crimes were revealed simply because those crimes had occurred several years earlier?

The slippery slope here is that we don't have an accurate roll call of who's used and who hasn't over the past decade. What if we withhold votes from some potential Hall of Fame players because we believe they were chemical wizards and yet unknowingly vote other dirty players into Cooperstown?

Inconsistent, yes. But also a risk I'm prepared to take, for a couple of reasons.

First, I'm not willing to throw up my hands and award a free pass to those who either have admitted steroid use or who have been fingered by strong circumstantial evidence simply because ignorance elsewhere might allow others who are guilty to skate into the Hall. That's stupid.

Should we close down the entire court system and refuse to convict anybody simply because we know that while some are being convicted, so many others are out there breaking the law and haven't been caught?

Second, if justice is more equal for some than for others, tough. The players brought this on themselves by refusing to push their union toward doing the right thing years ago. There was a silent majority who had every chance to voice their opinion, tell union leader Don Fehr that they were tired of losing jobs to the cheats and sick of suffering guilt by association.

They didn't.

So if McGwire and certain others connected with steroids fail the Cooperstown entrance exam while somebody else with 'roid-inflated stats sneaks in because nobody knew, well, it will be a shame. It's certainly not my first choice. But some justice is better than none at all.

That we're having this debate at all is based solely on McGwire's 583 home runs -- 33 percent of which are skewed between the suspicious seasons of 1997 and 1999, when he smoked 193 of those dingers.

Remove those, and he's nowhere close to Cooperstown. Of the 18 first basemen currently in the Hall of Fame, only Harmon Killebrew has a lower career batting average than McGwire's .263, only Frank Chance has fewer hits than McGwire's 1,626 and only Chance, Hank Greenberg and George Kelly have fewer at-bats than McGwire's 6,187.

And we're supposed to grin and look the other way at those beefed-up power numbers?

Sorry. The ballot I mailed back the other day did not contain a check next to the McGwire box, and I don't plan on checking it anytime soon, either.

If his own career was constructed with materials suspicious enough that McGwire continues to refuse to defend it, I don't see why anybody else would venture anywhere near that weak and shaky limb to defend him, either.

How easy it is to get on your soapbox and proseltyze after the party in question has already been publicly vilified.

Pujols is a complete player. 6, 8, 10 more years of this and he's first ballot. McGwire shouldn't make it even without the roid controversy.

McGwire/Sosa/Bonds symbolize the darkest era of any in the modern history of American sports. They should go down as pariahs for the credibility of the game.

I don't think we should let Bonds in on the basis that he "would have" gotten there anyway without the roids. If you let people in based on what they "would have" done, then there's no requirement for longevity anymore. A guy whose great career lasted 5 years and then was derailed by injury or something else could say, "well I would have had a great career if not for XYZ."

Lumping McGwire in with Cansucko is wrong. Whoever wrote that article is a fucking idiot.

Cansucko willfully did his roids along with everybody else. Then when his career ended, he sold all his friends and colleagues down the river for the sole and exclusive purpose of increasing his books sales and making more money. He is a dishonorable, amoral, despicable, back-stabbing piece of shit. Cheating sucks, but betraying ones friends is far worse in my book.

At least McGwire keeps his mouth shut and hides from the media.

Sorry, Bro. Steroid use has NEVER been legal in MLB. Players weren't TESTED until 2001 but it was never allowed.

Great like I said if you believe that then no one from this era should be put in the HOF.......one or the other, I don't think it's right to sit there and be like "well I think this guy did it and this guy didn't" no one really knows.

I think he's trying to say if Bonds had retired before he ever did roids and had big HR years he would have gotten in, which is likely true.

I always thought it was a joke how Bonds was held up to a different standard than Sosa and McGwire. I guess I was wrong.

There is no difference between Sosa, McGwire, and Bonds, except for the fact that without roids, Bonds is the only true HOFer.

Why would he want to hold another player's jock?

I don't think you will find an MLB rule against them prior to a couple of years ago.

McGwire is a punk

He's from Orange County Calafornia. They swing both ways out there you know.

No. It was never tested for until 2002, but it was always illegal.

Not against steroids specifically, but MLB has long had a rule against using drugs deemed illegal by the federal government.

Steroids were outlawed under U.S. law long before their use became prevalent in baseball.

The Hall of Fame asks its voters to judge "based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played."

Based upon this set of criteria....Bonds should NEVER get in...he has no integrity, has no character...and has no respect for the game, or those that worship it....all we've ever heard from Bonds is how unhappy he is, and how mistreated he is...and how unfortunate...

What a certified jackass....no HOF for you. (in my opinion)

Yea let's um not put people in the HOF cause we don't like them.....I guess that means a bunch of people need to be removed too.

yep ty cobb fits that bill

I'm obviously exaggerating a bit....but I guarantee you - my thoughts have probably come into play more than a few times by sportswriters casting their HOF votes.

Obviously I have a personal problem with someone who should be considered the luckiest in the world - plays professional baseball - is great at it - and worshipped by millions - and is rich from it - and somehow, is so ungrateful and unhappy from it.

good point, that was the most enjoyable year baseball has had since 1985.

Fixed your post

whoa mcgwire plays in a band

Well damn Barry Zito is gonna be a lock.

A real shitty one.
http://holly.colostate.edu/~jsoliver/poison%20copy.gif

I always thought he looked like James Hedfield (sp?!)

The biggest crime was that Bert Blyleven lost votes this time around. In the last go 'round he had 277. This time? 260.

He was more than deserving.

Put McGwire in, this is ridiculous. And while they're at it put in Rose too. The HOF is basically a sham if they don't even include the all-time record holder for hits in the sport, regardless of how you feel about him personally.

My opinion is that they're both cheaters and liars. Canseco decided to try to profit from their cheating and lying which I suppose drags him a little deeper into that cesspool. As to baseball talent, if I could have either player in his prime on my team, I'd want Canseco.

The shame of this, as someone mentioned earlier, is that McGwire's non-election gets more attention than the election of Ripken and Gwynn. Those guys were class acts, the types of athletes we would like them all to be.

All of those jokes can suck it IMO, Bonds, McGuire, Sosa, all of'em.

damn those steroids

I hope the NBA does not start looking to deep into the 80's and 90's players?????

I was watching Cold Pizza this morning, I don't know why, and there was a woman HOF voter who is from Oakland. And she said, I kid you not, that McGwire did not deserve to get in regardless of steroids. My jaw about hit the floor. I can't believe we have such people voting for the Hall.