Since 1965, there has never been a Baseball Hall of Fame ceremony without a living inductee.
Ever since Vietnam and The Beatles were front-page news, there’s always been someone for fans to pat on the back, a highlight reel of plays to relish and a fresh debate over who is and isn't standing on stage at Cooperstown -- every year for nearly 50 years, except this past weekend.
The “Steroid Era” has turned America’s pastime into a sport passed its prime. The true turning point was some years ago when so many players and executives with an inkling of suspicion could have done something, but looked the other way.
And now, we have reached a crescendo.
The likelihood of guys named Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa getting “the call” is about the same as Pedro Cerrano taking a curveball the opposite way -- not likely. With almost 600 votes cast by members of the Baseball Writers Association this year, not one player garnered the requisite 75 percent. Clemens (214 votes, 37.6 percent) and Bonds (206 votes, 36.2 percent) led the group of alleged users.
It's rather funny -- in an I-can’t-believe-you-fell-for-that sort of way -- as I look back on the time when my naivety left me. I can still recall the fondness of the summer of 1998 and how much I enjoyed picking up a newspaper every day to follow the home run chase between Sosa and Mark McGwire.
As much as it pains me to say, from then until now, it seems performance-enhancing drugs have become part of the game. PEDs are about as synonymous with baseball as they are with cycling, which is saying a lot. No player is safe from conjecture and as a spectator it is nearly impossible to suspend disbelief with any player -- experience is a keen teacher.
I want to avoid a proverbial witch hunt as much as the next guy, but please tell me your unbridled thoughts on the Orioles' Chris Davis hitting nearly 40 home runs before the All-Star break. Whether he’s clean or not -- I truly want to believe he is -- I’ve been jilted and jaded by so many Ryan Brauns and Alex Rodriguezs that I’m reaching critical mass.
Are some of the alleged cheaters still HOF worthy? Absolutely. If you’ve ever read the ground-breaking bestseller "Game of Shadows," it documents that Bonds started using PEDs following the 1998 season after watching McGwire break Roger Maris’ home run record. Prior to that, Bonds won three MVP awards, eight Gold Gloves, seven Silver Sluggers and made eight All-Star appearances. Was Clemens using performance enhancers when he fanned 20 batters in a start en route to the 1986 MVP as a 25-year-old? My better judgment says no, but no one knows for sure.
You could argue that the biggest problem is not baseball’s inability to find the perpetrators and what they’re using. I'm starting to seriously believe that PEDs cannot be stopped. Science continues to evolve and the "good guys" are seemingly one step behind. There will always be another BALCOs or Biogenesis as long as there are players who will utilize their seedy services.
The problem is Major League Baseball's drug policy. The risk of being caught is not greater than the reward of a multi-million dollar contract. Lengthen the suspensions and incorporate a hard and fast monetary penalty. Can there be too stiff a penalty? Pete Rose was banned from the game for life for the most egregious of infractions, but which is worse?
It’s at the point where you’re numb to the list of names, places and timelines of who did what and when. We owe it to ourselves, better yet, baseball owes its consumers a continued push to evolve beyond “we’re doing our best” and eradicate the dregs that have left America’s game so sullied.