McGwire in the Hall of Fame?

http://www.mcall.com/sports/baseball/all-bbn-mlbnotes.5583164nov28,0,3192988.story?coll=all-sportsmorebaseball-hed

"The Associated Press surveyed about 20 percent of eligible voters, and only one in four who gave an opinion plan to vote for McGwire this year. That's far short of the 75 percent necessary to gain induction."

It seems baseball's cheats are in for a rude awakening.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
http://www.mcall.com/sports/baseball/all-bbn-mlbnotes.5583164nov28,0,3192988.story?coll=all-sportsmorebaseball-hed

"The Associated Press surveyed about 20 percent of eligible voters, and only one in four who gave an opinion plan to vote for McGwire this year. That's far short of the 75 percent necessary to gain induction."

It seems baseball's cheats are in for a rude awakening.

Barry Bonds will be the best though. Can you imagine the victimhood coming from that guy if he doesn't get in on the first ballot?

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
http://www.mcall.com/sports/baseball/all-bbn-mlbnotes.5583164nov28,0,3192988.story?coll=all-sportsmorebaseball-hed

"The Associated Press surveyed about 20 percent of eligible voters, and only one in four who gave an opinion plan to vote for McGwire this year. That's far short of the 75 percent necessary to gain induction."

It seems baseball's cheats are in for a rude awakening.

McGwire cant get in, but not for the obvious reason. Big Mac is dirty to be sure, but the average fan can forgive him because he put a charge back in the game. But if they slide him in, they have to put Bonds in too. And there is no way that is going to happen. So tough luck Mark

Originally posted by kirksey957
Barry Bonds will be the best though. Can you imagine the victimhood coming from that guy if he doesn't get in on the first ballot?

Yeah...it should be entertaining.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
http://www.mcall.com/sports/baseball/all-bbn-mlbnotes.5583164nov28,0,3192988.story?coll=all-sportsmorebaseball-hed

"The Associated Press surveyed about 20 percent of eligible voters, and only one in four who gave an opinion plan to vote for McGwire this year. That's far short of the 75 percent necessary to gain induction."

It seems baseball's cheats are in for a rude awakening.

Will Gaylord Perry, Don Sutton, Whitey Ford and others who admitted throwing pitches with foreign substances on the ball now be stripped of Hall of Fame status? BTW, what rule did "cheater" McGwire break?

Originally posted by no1marauder
Will Gaylord Perry, Don Sutton, Whitey Ford and others who admitted throwing pitches with foreign substances on the ball now be stripped of Hall of Fame status? BTW, what rule did "cheater" McGwire break?

No, the spitballers won't be kicked out of the hall of fame.

McGwire broke no rule, of course. Baseball has been embarrasingly slow to adopt drug testing, and did not have it in place until after McGwire retired. However, you don't necessarily have to break a rule to be a cheat.

"1 : the act or an instance of fraudulently deceiving : DECEPTION, FRAUD"
"2 : one that cheats : PRETENDER, DECEIVER"

www.m-w.com

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
No, the spitballers won't be kicked out of the hall of fame.

McGwire broke no rule, of course. Baseball has been embarrasingly slow to adopt drug testing, and did not have it in place until after McGwire retired. However, you don't necessarily have to break a rule to be a cheat.

"1 : the act or an instance of fraudulently deceiving : DECEPTION, FRAUD"
"2 : one that cheats : PRETENDER, DECEIVER"

www.m-w.com

Idiot Robomod won't allow a post with the word "Ch**ting" in it, wiping out a two paragraph post I just wrote.

The jist of it was that "[insert forbidden word here]" in a game is defined as dishonestly breaking the rules, not using deception. Ricky Henderson didn't announce when he was going to steal second, Tony LaRussa doesn't put it on the Scoreboard when he's going to use the squeeze play, etc. etc. - Deception is an accepted part of baseball. When a player tries to bluff in poker, if he is successful he has deceived you but you have not been [past tense of forbidden word].

Originally posted by no1marauder
Idiot Robomod won't allow a post with the word "Ch**ting" in it, wiping out a two paragraph post I just wrote.

The jist of it was that "[insert forbidden word here]" in a game is defined as dishonestly breaking the rules, not using deception. Ricky Henderson didn't announce when he was going to steal second, Tony LaRussa doesn't put it on th ...[text shortened]... is successful he has deceived you but you have not been [past tense of forbidden word].

So are you saying that McGwire's injection of HGH to build muscle mass and sock 70 homers in one year was simply strategic "deception" and should be accepted as part of the game? 😕

Originally posted by darvlay
So are you saying that McGwire's injection of HGH to build muscle mass and sock 70 homers in one year was simply strategic "deception" and should be accepted as part of the game? 😕

No, it wasn't "deception" at all and was allowed by the rules (assuming he did it). I took BD to be saying that he "deceived" his opponents by doing so, but I don't accept that rationale for the reason stated (again assuming he did it).

"Building muscle mass" is not a sufficient prerequiste for "socking 70 home runs" BTW. And yes, I think building muscle mass by such means should be accepted as part of the game as laser eye surgery is. And even if it isn't, his doing it (assuming et al) shouldn't disqualify him from the Hall since unquestioned cheating didn't disqualify the pitchers named (and many others not named).

Originally posted by no1marauder
No, it wasn't "deception" at all and was allowed by the rules (assuming he did it). I took BD to be saying that he "deceived" his opponents by doing so, but I don't accept that rationale for the reason stated (again assuming he did it).

"Building muscle mass" is not a sufficient prerequiste for "socking 70 home runs" BTW. And yes, I think building muscle mass should be accepted as part of the game as laser eye surgery is.

It's baseball, a game; not a technological race to build the world's first super-player. I would never support a league where the reckless use of HGH and anabolic steroids is not explicitly prohibited and monitored.

That being said, what's been done by MLB in the past 10 or so years is done. Scores of players got away with steroid abuse as the overly-inflated numbers indicate (not exactly concrete proof, I know, but circumstantial evidence nonetheless). Should players like Big Mac, Sosa, Bonds, Raffy, etc. be held accountable for the effect of the poor decisions of MLB executives and officials? I'm not so sure. Unfortunately, the voters don't see it that way...

As a point of interest:

Mark McGwire
Silver medalist at the 1984 Olympics
1987 AL Rookie of the Year with 49 homeruns at the age of 24
1989 Wolrd Series Champion
Numbers dwindled until bottoming out in 1991 - 22 HRs, .201 avg
And then...

"With the help of a sports vision specialist he regained his mental edge, and with the aid of a weightlifting program he became even stronger. He rebounded to hit 42 homers and bat .268 in 1992"

Hmmmm... 😉

Originally posted by darvlay
It's baseball, a game; not a technological race to build the world's first super-player. I would never support a league where the reckless use of HGH and anabolic steroids is not explicitly prohibited and monitored.

That being said, what's been done by MLB in the past 10 or so years is done. Scores of players got away with steroid abuse as the overly-in became even stronger. He rebounded to hit 42 homers and bat .268 in 1992"

Hmmmm... 😉

Whoops...

Originally posted by darvlay
It's baseball, a game; not a technological race to build the world's first super-player. I would never support a league where the reckless use of HGH and anabolic steroids is not explicitly prohibited and monitored.

That being said, what's been done by MLB in the past 10 or so years is done. Scores of players got away with steroid abuse as the overly-in ...[text shortened]... became even stronger. He rebounded to hit 42 homers and bat .268 in 1992"

Hmmmm... 😉

That's pretty sloppy research, Darv; I don't see much "dwindling" in his numbers in 1988-1990; he still averaged about 35 HR's and about a 100 RBI's during that span. He had a bad year in 1991 but his 1992 numbers were consistent with the period 1987-1990 and he was only 28 years old. 1987 was a record breaking year for HR's at the time with lots of rumours about the ball being juiced. McGwire's numbers really don't jump off the page until the mid-90's.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/m/mcgwima01.shtml

We've had this discussion before and I still don't see any meaningful difference between laser eye surgery to improve eye sight and the use of anabolic steroids to build muscle mass.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Idiot Robomod won't allow a post with the word "Ch**ting" in it, wiping out a two paragraph post I just wrote.

The jist of it was that "[insert forbidden word here]" in a game is defined as dishonestly breaking the rules, not using deception. Ricky Henderson didn't announce when he was going to steal second, Tony LaRussa doesn't put it on th is successful he has deceived you but you have not been [past tense of forbidden word].

However, fraudulent deception in baseball is not usually accepted or even allowed. One of your examples, Gaylord Perry, was ejected for throwing a spitball.

http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/P/Perry_Gaylord.stm

Rick Honeycutt of the LA Dodgers got caught using a thumbtack to scratch the cover of the ball, and was ejected from a game.

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/cheaters/ballplayers.html
(Hmm, ESPN doesn't seem very accepting of their behavior....)

As the ESPN page shows, the mind of a cheat is very creative. It's expected that some will cheat in ways not anticipated by the rules. The subsequent creation and enforcement of rules shows that baseball in fact wishes to condemn such behavior.

McGwire's career deteorariated to that he batted .201 and then all of a sudden he becomes more muscular at an age when athletes tradionally struggle to maintain their prowess. He suddenly hit 60 - 70 homers - a mark that was only reached by two people in 100 years! He cannot defend himself in front of Congress. He probably commited perjury. He probably broke laws to obatin these illegal drugs.
Now we can make make believe it is OK to cheat because we don't have the results of a test, we can exonerate the man and say that it is baseball's fault for not testing and codifying rules to catch what was already illegal. Or we can say the as a result of the overwhelming evidence of guilt we will not recognize the guy as an immortal great. Well, there are many people in jail with less circumstancial evidence. I cannot name everyone who cheated but, I certainly hope that guys like McGwire, Sosa, Bonds never make the hall.