Mark McGwire

And others. Its time for Hall of Fame voting and the "steroid era" has begun. My thought is simple. What did the guy do as a baseball player and is it good enough to be a Hall of Famer? A players "character" is one of the voting criteria, but shouldn't be. Voters can too easily inject their own values into that area. Now a baseball writer who didn't like a player for some reason can just say he didn't vote for him because he thinks he cheated. Well Ty Cobb was a racist. Gaylord Perry cheated and admitted that he did. Players used to use "greenies". Will they go back and remove guys? Did McGwire do something that the rules said he couldn't? Was he caught? Was he the only one? Can you tell me that no pitcher he faced did the same thing?

Wasn't there a time where the pool of men that baseball drew from a bit smaller? Whites only? Smaller country? Less foreign players? Now there is an abundance of "specialized" pitchers. On the flip side, before pro football and basketball were so popular, all the best athletes played baseball. Could some guys have compiled the career achievements had they not gone to war? Wasn't it known that the mound at Dodger stadium was always a little higher? All the mounds were lowered by rule change at some point. Grass has been kept long for groundball pitchers. Foul lines slanted to benefit bunters. Players now know a lot more about nutrition and working out. Has anyone noticed that records in all sports fall as time passes?

How long can we keep going with all the differences between the times before we realize that times change, the game changes, so the only thing that matters is what the heck a guy did in the game when he played.

For me it comes down to this. It’s the Baseball Hall of Fame, dudes. Relax, it’s a game. Put the best players in the thing and if you are so morally concerned, put your concern on the plaque, "Dude accomplished 'this', people thought he did 'this' to help himself". Like all the sportswriters who vote are so perfect, huh? You know that they take voting for the hall of fame too serious when you still hear about not voting for a guy in his first year of eligibility because "that's the way it is".

Mark McGwire belongs in the Hall of Fame for what he did as a player. Yeah, so does Pete Rose. And Shoeless Joe Jackson. And so will Barry Bonds.