Posted on 01/27/2022 4:05:00 AM PST by Kaslin
“Everyone cheats” is a hell of a lesson for the nation’s kids. When it comes to professional sports it might be true. When everyone is at the top of their game, and there are millions of dollars on the line, everyone will look for an advantage. Some people will cross the line, and many of those people will get away with it. Is it time to accept this?
I’m not suggesting pro sports go the route of the great Saturday Night Live skit about the “All-Drug Olympics” from back when the show was funny, but maybe acknowledge that players, even some of the greatest players ever, cheated.
Hank Aaron and Mickey Mantle didn’t take steroids, they weren’t really around then, but the players of that era took other things. Amphetamines called “greenies” were passed around in clubhouses regularly to give players the energy they needed when a night a drinking and cheating on their wives left them wanting for energy the next day. Was that cheating? Probably. But no one from that time is punished for it or kept out of the Hall of Fame.
This year’s class of players in their first round of eligibility for the baseball Hall of Fame is one person: David Ortiz. He was a designated hitter who couldn’t play the field to save his life. When he had to play in the field (interleague play) they stuck him at first base, where movement, speed, and ability are needed the least. But he could hit home runs, knocking 541 of them over his career.
He also may well have cheated.
I use that qualifier because we don’t know, it was just a story that made the rounds after an anonymous 2003 test of random players to see the extent of use of performance enhancing drugs. The story is Ortiz tested positive, but the results were all anonymous, so there’s no way to know. He has vehemently denied it.
But somehow, and these things do happen in nature, after 6 years of being a below average player who couldn’t hold a job in the big leagues, he became a force of nature who could do no wrong at the plate. Like I said, sometimes that happens in nature, and there’s no reason to doubt that’s what happened here…aside from those rumors.
Those rumors have dogged a lot of players who otherwise would be in the Hall of Fame. Mark McGuire, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Rafael Palmero, Roger Clemens, etc., are just a few. Did they cheat? Some we know did, others we only have allegations against. But all have been denied the Hall because of them.
Clemens is one of the greatest pitchers in the history of the game, and was from a young age, but he’s out. The sportswriters, who are the gatekeepers of who gets in and who doesn’t, have deemed him unworthy, so he’s out.
All these players will likely get in at some point, when the various veteran’s committees, which consist of former players, have their say. But they shouldn’t have to wait that long if the Hall is about what you did on the field.
Did Barry Bonds juice? It sure seems like it. He had Hall of Fame skills as a rookie, but not the kind of power he showed when his size, including that of his head, swelled massively over one off season. Did the others juice? Maybe. But what they are alleged to have done wasn’t against the rules of baseball at the time. Should they be punished forever?
They actually hit those home runs, made those plays. The writers, who sit in judgment of them, never did. And can you really trust those writers? The really only kept out Curt Schilling because he’s a vocal conservative, so we’re not dealing with people who care about the game…of baseball, at least.
Finally, and I have softened on all of this, they should be in. But more than that, so should Pete Rose. He has more hits than anyone else who played the game, 955 more than anyone active in the game today, and that guy is 42 years old and not a threat to catch him. It’s absurd he’s not in the Hall of Fame because of a lifetime ban for betting on baseball at a time Major League Baseball (and all pro sports) are partnering with, and hammering huge checks from, gambling companies. You can’t watch a football game without 20 ads for how you can get rich by betting like various Oscar winning actors.
If Major League Baseball has “an official gaming partner,” what is the justification for a continued ban on Rose? Spite, and that’s it.
Pete Rose will be 81 in April. The rumor is MLB will allow him in after he dies. How many billions will they have sucked out of the pockets of addicted gamblers and manipulated novices through their partnerships with gambling organizations before then?
Is cheating really cheating if everyone is doing it?
Ideally, no one would cheat, sports would literally be a contest between great athletes at peak performance through hard work and preparation. But there’s a lot of money on the line, too much for some to not seek an advantage. That advantage causes others to try to find their own, and it spirals from there. Is baseball just going to pretend the 1990s didn’t happen?
The McGuire/Sosa home run chase brought millions of new fans to the game and millions more back to it. Barry Bonds filled stadiums as he knocked balls out of it. The owners made bigger fortunes and the sportswriters lapped it all up, keeping their jobs because people wanted to read about all of it. Now they sit in judgment over the players that made them? Worse, they deem them unworthy? Who the hell are they?
If you want to keep undeserving people out of the Hall of Fame start with the Baseball Writers Association of America. End it there too.
WGAF. The Baseball Hall of Fame “jumped the shark” when Harold Baines was inducted. If that’s the standard for admission into the HOF, then you could put 20% of the men who ever played at least one full season of Major League Baseball in there.
I no longer care about sports. I cancelled my Nats season tickets when MLB took the knee. I had already stopped watching the NFL and basketball always sucked.
Now even golfers juice. No question Tiger was flying to Canada regularly to get pumped up with HGH and likely other PEDs. He blew up, and it severely damaged his body, mind, and career. The juicers in all sports have figured out how to stay two steps ahead of the testers.
I wouldn’t know and neither do you.
If we only consider the performance on the field, and ignore rule breaking, then all these players deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.
This subject all depends on the criteria used to judge the situation. If we only consider on the field performance, then they all would be honored in the Hall of Fame.
Baseball has become a joke.
Yeah, he gambled on games but there is no claim that he ever bet against his own team, so there could be no charge of 'game fixing'.
Check his on field production and compare it to anyone else that is in the Hall and he is almost 1,000 hits ahead of anyone.
It wasn't just his hitting, it was his entire approach to every play, every game, every day.
Even his opposition gives him credit for his hustle, no one ever worked harder.
No, the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame is a joke. There’s (c)rap people in there, but no Iron Maiden.
I would like to see Shoeless Joe Jackson in the Hall of Fame before Rose or any of the other names mentioned in the article are inducted. IIRC, Shoeless Joe’s stats in the Black Sox series of 1919 very much challenge the idea that he was personally bought by the gamblers who wanted to fix that Series.
Just MLB taking a cue from 'Rats at the ballot box.
If/when Pete Rose goes into the HOF, it should be right next to Joe Jackson.
Yes
Ok so its a joke, why is it so hard for people to give up watching sportsball? It’s so simple a thing that does not cost any money. Reclaim your time. Reclaim your life.
Even more egregious is woke baseball writers blackballing Curt Schilling.
I also lost interest when MLB became BLM. I think of the organization as MLBLM now. The most egregious offense was moving the All-Star game out of Atlanta to protest Georgia passing an election integrity law.
That’s an extremely weak defense of Pete Rose. He initially denied betting on baseball games at all. Then, when that was exposed as a lie, he denied betting on Reds games while he was managing the team. When that was also proven false, he’s down to his last pathetic defense that he never bet against them. That’s sort of like saying we should go easy on a criminal who broke into a home because he didn’t intend to burn it down or molest the children upstairs, but just to rob the place.
Secondly, what you’re overlooking is that if he gambled regularly on Reds games, he DID effectively “bet against his own team” every time he did not place a bet on the Reds. Even if he didn’t win any money on that “non-bet,” you can be sure that all of his gambling associates made note of this — and placed their bets accordingly.
I don’t give a sh!t one way or another. I suspect that Rose will eventually be indicted into the HOF, but by the time that happens hardly anyone still watching MLB games will even remember who he was.
Maybe he’s being blackballed, but I don’t think Schilling has as strong a case for the HOF as others might. He’s had the misfortune of playing at a time when the role of the starting pitcher changed dramatically, so it will take some time to sort out the mix as previous milestones like 300-win and 3,000-strikeout careers disappear, 20-win seasons become more rare, and complete games become an anomaly.
The left has been on a campaign to destroy all institutions for 100 years. A critical component is to eliminate standards and the concept of reward for performance. Today rewards result from political action by organized groups, not from individual performance.
The subject is not worth too much consideration. It is just entertainment.
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