Quote:
Originally Posted by jruck37
Regarding the Hall of Fame, I think A-Rod, Clemens, Bonds, and McGwire will all have a decent shot once people get perspective of how prevalent roids were during the last 2 decades. With or without drugs, those guys were transcendent players in their era.
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Respectfully, I disagree.
I think baseball is America's most moralistic sport. One strike against the game's moral underpinnings and you're out. That's why Shoeless Joe and Charley Hustle are on the outside looking in.
Personally, I don't think McGwire was a transformative player. Take away steroids, starting around '93 or so, and what's left on his
stat sheet that screams "Hall of Fame"?
A great rookie season, and some very good follow-ups, disrupted by injuries. Everything after that is juiced.
Bonds disgraced the game, and the game won't forgive him for that. Never mind that he was
baseball's best player from 1990 until he got older and the juicers started distorting the stat sheets in the late '90s.
He had a HOF career, but I don't think he'll ever get close to being part of the decor.
Clemens? I think his HOF case would have to be built before 1997. If he's a HOFer
from '84 to '96, with his three CYAs and MVP, then okay, he was headed for the Hall.
But anything from '97 on is tainted, and even if it weren't, perjury is the deal-breaker. I think he goes onto the scrap heap with McGwire, Sosa, and Palmeiro, even though he may fit better into the Bonds category of the superstar who became too super.
Fly too close to the sun, and the wax holding your wings together will melt. Every fucking time.
A-Rod, on the other hand, probably gets into the HOF, as long as he never gets caught again. Being one name on a list of 104, and then admitting it and apologizing, is worlds away from telling Congress to lick your atrophied scrotum.
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