Posted on 01/07/2014 12:59:17 PM PST by EveningStar
No player has ever been elected unanimously to the Hall of Fame and four-time Cy Young winner Greg Maddux, the most obvious of the many deserving candidates on this year’s ballot, won’t be the first. We now know that for sure thanks to MLB.com’s commendable tradition of posting its writers’ ballots the day before the results are announced. There are 17 MLB.com writers who have been members of the Baseball Writers Association of America for 10 or more years and thus are eligible to vote for the Hall of Fame. Sixteen of them voted for Maddux. Dodgers beat reporter Ken Gurnick did not.
Why not? Gurnick wrote that he won’t vote for any player who “played during the period of PED use.” Not one. So who was on his ballot? Just Jack Morris.
(Excerpt) Read more at mlb.si.com ...
PED’s and player’s greed has made the Hall of Fame irrelevant.
I guess I grew up loving baseball at the wrong time. I remember when players had to have an off season job to survive and played for the love of the game.
Jack Morris played into the mid-90’s...isn’t that part of the “steroid era”?
ok so Greg Maddux will still very deservedly be in the hall.
Perhaps he figures that even if the clean players weren't using roids, they at least knew about it....and by not saying anything, the use of roids perpetuated.
I’m mixed....
I do love DiMaggio
One thing I like about baseball is that their Hall of fame is more prestigious than the other Sports.
One more reason why the Baseball Hall of Fame should now include television and radio broadcasters who have broadcast baseball games for 15 years or more. Broadcasters—who have actually seen the players in the field of play—are better judges of who belongs in the Hall of Fame than a large fraction of the BBWAA, in my humble opinion!
I’m asking this question in all seriousness: When did they actually play for the love of the game? I’ve been following baseball since the 1960’s and they were all “greedy b-st-rds who didn’t play for the love of the game like in the old days” or at least that’s what people were saying back then.
I think the guy is being a jerk, but I don’t think the players can complain about it. They could have made a stink about body morphing PEDS back then, they chose not to do so. They sacrificed the guy that never got called up but might have if it wasn’t for someone else using PEDS in the bigs. In return, they got generally higher salaries as the abusers got big contracts and drove the average salary across the board up. If it really mattered about a supposed non-user all time great like Maddux not getting 100% then they should have done something different. They should have done something different if they didn’t want this logjam with a good chance of deserving players not making it at all as everyone starts splitting their votes between suspected/known user greats and non-top tier HFers.
It’s still the only Hall of Fame that matters pretty much, and no it is far from perfect.
Freegards
That’s a great point, folks who actually watch games. Some of the statistical analysis guys should probably get votes as well.
Freegards
True, but the 23-inch home plate Maddux always seemed to get didn't hurt him. Still a great pitcher, though.
No I don't. But do you think Maguire wasn't juicing when he hit the 33 in the first half.... Really?
That was in 1987. Did you see him back then? He was kind of scrawny then, definitely not bulked up. Check it out.
Why do you keep misspelling his name?
McGwire never played an inning in the MLB when steroids were not present. I played in the early mid 80’s, they were around then too, and this was at the college and semi-pro level.
A guy I know very high in the Yankee organization, I mean very high, told me that he suspected that Rivera was a PED user back in 96.
Steroids were around since at least the 60s, if not before. What is your point?
Maddux not on roids. Look at him. Geez.
Not everyone who used steroids necessarily gets big muscles. Remember people didn't believe that Raphael Palmerio used steroids either because he was so slender and his strong denials. All the evidence was Jose Canseco's word on it until Palmerio tested positive.
The primary benefit of steroids to bodybuilders is the reduction of recovery time. Because steroids speed up the natural recovery process, bodybuilders can essentially double up on their workouts and reduce their rest cycles. This speeding of the recovery process is the same thing that pitchers desire. Pitchers using steroids don't need the same recovery time between starts as pitchers who don't use.
I have no reason to suspect that Maddux uses PEDs but I wouldn't be shocked to learn that any MLB player, including Maddux, used PEDs in his career.
Interesting. A buddy and I were trying to decide which baseball star is the least likely to use PEDs. We agreed on Mariano Rivera. However, I also told my buddy that I'm so cynical on this issue now, that I wouldn't be surprised to find out that anyone in MLB was using PEDs.
As a life-long Yankee fan, I have to admit that the Yankees don't have a very good record policing PED use in their organization.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.