Steroids in the Hall of Fame

[Slyfox696]

With the recent allegation of Alex Rodriguez testing positive for steroids, I have heard many times about how he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame, how Mark McGwire (despite NEVER testing positive) shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame, etc. We have also heard, over the years, many people say that as many as HALF of the players in the MLB have been on steroids, meaning that it's just as possible that pitchers on steroids were throwing to batters on steroids.

So, that requires an important question. Should people who used steroids be allowed in the Hall of Fame? How about people who were accused of steroid use? Or people suspected of steroid abuse? This doesn't apply just to MLB, it applies to any sport.

Should people with the taint of steroids be allowed in a Hall of Fame?

 

[jmt225]

Yes, people who used steroids when it WASN'T against the rules to do so should DEFINITELY be able to get into the Hall of Fame. These guys didn’t “cheat” if there wasn't a rule set in stone that steroid use was in violation of MBL policies and that whoever partakes in it would be punished. People say that even though it wasn't against the rules at the time, it was still illegal. And to that I say, so the fuck what? Running a red light is illegal too, but should we punish players by keeping them out of the Hall of Fame just because they got a traffic ticket or two during their playing days? Absolutely not. The same goes for steroid use as far as I'm concerned.

Bonds, McGuire, Sosa and A-Rod should all be put in the Hall of Fame (Pete Rose should be there too, but different story of course), no doubt about it. And I don't see how anyone could make a logical argument against

 

[klunderbunker]

Yes they should be allowed in, but not all around. To begin with, I've long sicne thought McGwire and Sosa should be in for practically saving baseball after the 94 strike. They took the game on their backs and delivered the greatest season in the game's history, at least in my eyes.

As for the HOF, why not? Seriously, are we supposed to believe that no one in the hall of fame cheated? Gaylord Perry admitted to using spit balls. When you get right down to it, any rules violation is cheating. You did something outside of the rules and it was illegal. Shouldn't all punishments be the same then? A lot of it I think should come from how the players dealt with it. Take Andy Pettitte and Jason Giambi for examples. While they're not HOF players, let's say they were for argument's sake. Pettitte admitted to what he did and Giambi more or less did, and now they're not talked about for steroids anymore.

On the other hand you have Bonds and Clemens. Despite never testing positive, there is no way you can convince me Bonds wasn't on the juice. Way too much evidence suggesting he was. He's been a total jerk for his entire career and that's caatching up to him. He's naturally disliked, whereas Clemens is naturally liked. Both are guilty of the same crime (allegedly) yet they're being treated differently, which I think is how it should be. People talk about Bonds and say how he was a Hall of Fame player even before he allegedly was on steroids. The problem is, how do you know when he started? Is it possible he was taking very small doses that got him to the levels he was at before he balloned up? Maybe, and that's where all the trouble lies in baseball. With no policy at all, now we're in trouble. People see the word steroids next to someone's name and your opinion changes completely, guilty or not.

To summarize, yes players should be in, but on a case by case basis with a heavy emphasis on how they handled it.

 

[Starchild]

I think you have to put guys who took steroids in the Hall. Why you may ask? Because many of the best players of the era (Bonds, Clemens, now A-Rod, etc.) it has been reported, have tested postive for steroids and still more (McGwire, Sosa, etc.) never tested positive but it is assumed that they did.
If you don't put these guys in, who are you going to put in? Replacing some of the best with above average players who probably wouldn't have gotten in is not the option.

And I agree with a point KB made..how do we know that many guys already in the hall didn't take them..or cheat in any way? Cheating is cheating and any kind of competitive advantage that is against the rules is equal I would think. Not considering the time that alot of these guys are speculated to have taken steroids had no formal policy against it, that would make it legal. So why exclude those guys? Now if someone took them while they were illegal is different...but still, if someone took them for one year and had hall of fame numbers anyway, they deserve to be in. Unfortunately, these last 10 years has cast a huge shadow on Major League Baseball that it may never come out of, where we question any player that is good and especially those that are hall of fame worthy. But in my eyes, someone is innocent until proven guilty and thus deserves accolades they should get for being innocent. And for those that aren't, more information has to be gathered to determine how much of a difference the alleged cheating made on their career to determine their hall worthiness.

 

[klunderbunker]

With A-Rod coming clean today mere days after the allegations were brought up against him, I'd have to say he still belongs in the HOF. Steroids can improve a player but they can't give him natural talent. A-Rod has the numbers for the Hall no doubt and will one day have more records than he does now, but should they have an asterisk? he claims to have stopped using them after 2003, and let's say that's true. They were legal at the time, but how many people are going to ban him anyway? The biggest help to him in my eyes is that he admitted what he did what, 3 days after being accused? That scores him a lot of points for me, as he didn't drag it out forever like others have. He manned up to it and said what he did.

Two other points here. This is a bigger problem for baseball than it just appears. The common defense againt A-Rod for years has been he's a normal sized guy. This kind of proves that means nothing at all. He stayed pretty much the same size and only grew a little, which could easily be attributed to natural training as he never jumped up like Bonds did.

Also, A-Rod was one of the 104 names on a list. Curt Schilling, who has a chance at making it himself has asked why don't we get to know the other 103 names? If I were baseball, I'd try to find a way to let them be known. Why should A-Rod be outted like this and not them? I'm sure some of them are known players and maybe even top level players who could receive debate for the HOF. Why not let them be known as well?

 

[Shadowmancer]

The reason that they aren't outed is because that would be illegal, A-Rod getting outed was illegal. And I can guarantee that someone will be looking at how SI got that information in the first place since it was court ordered not to be released. As for whether to allow players that allegedly have tested positive to Steroids or are strongly suspected to have taken steroids and whether they should be allowed in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I will ask two questions that need to be answered first.

Do Steroids Help a Pitcher put the Ball in the right place?
Do Steroids Help the Batter to actually get bat on Ball?

The answer by logic is no. It may help them hit harder or throw faster, it still doesn't take away from the skills. This means that they should be factored in as indicators that the numbers are probably tainted in some way, but you can't say that they wouldn't have managed to win those games and all that.

There is also two options that are available that pretty much will screw everyone over,

1)No Player can be inducted now for stuff post strike.
2)MLB closes down

 

[klunderbunker]

While it is illegal, I've never seen why it should be. If people want to talk about the rights to privacy, what's the difference between that and snorting cocaine in the privacy of your own home? Lance Berkman of the Astros said a great thing yesterday; Everyone in baseball is guilty by association. That's absolutely true unless we know who cheated and who didn't. We're the people that pay our money for the tickets. If someone cheated and got caught, why shouldn't we be able to know who they are?

 

[Mighty NorCal]

The records should stand, and the guys should be allowed in. sure they were juicing, but who wasnt at the time?? You have to adhere to a scale, a scale of the era. The batter might have been on juice, but fuck, the pitchers they were going against probably were too. There should be an asertisk attached to it, but a very stringent definition of what that asertisk stands for, which would be an entire era.

 

[klunderbunker]

Well said.

This goes back to what Berkman said: how can anyone prove their innocence? A week ago at this time we all assumed that A-Rod was clean. Turns out that's not true. It's easy to think that people have been clean but there's no way that it can be proven. Innocence can't be proven at all. People can say all they want that they're clean but it means nothing. Almost anyone for a certain era should be asterisked in the record books. How can they not be?