As Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa sink slowly in tandem toward steroids oblivion, reprising their relationship in their electrifying home run derby of 1998 but in a different direction, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens run slowly in place, doomed to their personal Groundhog Day in baseball cleats. Mike Piazza, meanwhile, is very likely headed, undeserved as it may be, to having the last laugh on his nemesis Clemens.
That, in brief, sums up my view of the results of this year’s voting for the Hall of Fame, in which Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio were elected in what some of the supposedly neutral voters viewed, in a celebratory salute, as a bonanza for baseball.
McGwire and Sosa, who duped fans, reporters and the commissioner alike with their combined 136 home runs in 1998, continued losing support in this year’s election and have become endangered species as far as the Hall election goes.
Drawing only 6.6 percent of the 549 votes (36), Sosa received only 8 more votes than he needed to remain on the ballot for a fourth year. McGwire gained 55 votes, or 10 percent, allowing him to live another day, but it was his weakest showing in eight years on the ballot. His best showing was 23.7 percent in his third year.
Bonds and Clemens aren’t in danger of falling off the face of the earth, but they aren’t in danger either of reaching the doors of the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Voters have been remarkably consistent in their treatment of the pair. In their first two years on the ballot, Bonds and Clemens each received votes in the mid-30 percent, and that’s precisely where they wound up this week, 36.8 percent for Bonds, 37.5 percent for Clemens.
Each actually went up 2.1 percent, but with seven more chances, at that rate they won’t very likely get where they want to go.
There would seem to be a hardcore group of voters and no one else who ignore the steroids/HGH elements of their careers and believe Bonds and Clemens belong in the Hall of Fame even if they cheated and used illegal substances.
What puzzles me is the different vote totals for the pair. If a writer opts to ignore the cheating aspects of their careers, why doesn’t he or she vote for both? Yet this year 206 voted for Clemens, 202 for Bonds. Does that mean four voters have a different reason for believing that Bonds doesn’t belong in the Hall?
The same four-vote difference existed last year, but in their first year on the ballot, 2013, Clemens received eight more votes than Bonds.
Some television analysts (including writers who double as TV analysts) were excited that Curt Schilling’s percentage shot up 10 percent, from 29.2 to 39.2 in his third year, but they ignored the fact that the increase only brought the bloody-sock pitcher back to where he was in his first year, 38.8, and he had lost two years from his eligibility.
Tim Raines’ vote total also was cause for excitement for some analysts. The outfielder went from 46.1 percent to 55.0, but a year ago he tumbled from 52.2 to 46.1. He has two more chances.
I think the primary reason for the excitement for both Schilling and Raines was that they rank high on the lists of the practitioners of the monster metrics, who seemed to be thrilled that the writers were finally starting to get it right where those two players are concerned.
Interestingly, while watching one of those shows, I saw a film clip from another show, in which Brian Kenny of MLB.com was arguing with Chris Russo, a talk show host, about which players belong in the Hall of Fame.
Getting nowhere and becoming exasperated with Russo, Kenny, a major proponent of monster metrics, said, “Well, what basic methodology do you use to rate players?”
“I watch the games,” Russo said.
I have always avoided listening to Russo, who screams too much and too loud for my liking, but in this instance, he won my allegiance. In four words, he made the case for those of us who prefer to judge players on what we see on the field, not on the computer screen.
How should we judge Piazza, whose 69.9 percent puts him on the brink of walking into the Hall a year from now? Based on that vote, most writers don’t believe or even suspect that he used steroids. That is probably naïve of them.
Using the New York newspapers as a barometer, the New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro wrote a column about Piazza in which he didn’t mention even the possibility of the catcher’s use of performance-enhancing drugs. If he doesn’t believe Piazza used them, why didn’t Vaccaro write that the accusations are baseless?
John Harper of the Daily News did not duck the issue.
“The problem is we can’t know for sure and there was so much whispering about Piazza and PEDs during his career that you can’t help but have at least some reservations about voting for him.
“I heard some of it myself over the years from people in baseball, but in the end I don’t think it’s fair to deny a player the highest honor in baseball without more proof than there is on Piazza.
“So after withholding my vote for his first year of eligibility, as a statement of sorts on all the suspicion, I’ve voted for him the last two years. And it seems there are other voters taking a similar tack, feeling more compelled to vote for Piazza with each year that passes.”
Harper quoted from Piazza’s 2013 autobiography, which in itself was controversial. Michael Bamberger, a fine writer from Philadelphia, was originally going to collaborate on the book with Piazza, but he withdrew from the project when Piazza declined to commit to being forthcoming about steroids.
When Piazza was writing the book with Lonnie Wheeler, I asked their Simon & Schuster editor if Piazza would include steroids in it. He said Piazza would cover the subject. He, of course, did not admit to using PEDs, saying training and diet were responsible for his bigger, more muscular body.
Had he acknowledged a use of PEDs, he would have killed his chances of making the Hall of Fame, which he desperately wanted to do and now is in position to do.
“I’d be less than truthful if I didn’t admit that my legacy is something I ponder quite a bit,” he wrote. “Election to the Hall of Fame would, for me, validate everything,” he also wrote.
The New York Times mentioned Piazza and steroids in the same story, and that was by far my favorite. On at least two occasions, maybe three, during Piazza’s years with the New York Mets (1998-2005), as a baseball writer and columnist for The New York Times, I wanted to write about Piazza and the possibility that he had used steroids.
However, I was told I could not because Piazza hadn’t tested positive for steroids use and hadn’t been named anywhere as a suspected user.
An article in the Times Wednesday cited Piazza’s 427 career home runs and .308 batting average and said, “Those are standout numbers. But in an era in which the voting is shadowed by baseball’s entanglement with steroids, Piazza has suffered from the perception, among some writers, that he might have been a user, although no evidence has emerged that he was.”
The article was written by Jay Schreiber, who was the editor who said I couldn’t write about Piazza and steroids.
Percentage of votes in Hall of Fame elections for players who have been linked to steroids use, some more specifically than others:
