No Steroid Era Player Should Ever Be Elected To The Baseball Hall of Fame

There is always plenty of debate over the Baseball Hall of Fame. Fans love to debate the merits of potential candidates and whether or not they deserve enshrinement. Recently, the fun of the HOF debate has derailed into an argument over how much PED users should be punished.

MLB and the HOF have done a terrible job giving the baseball writers guidelines as to how to handle the Steroid Era of baseball in terms of voting. This has left Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, the two greatest players of the era, receiving less than 40 percent of the vote, Craig Biggio being elected before his superior teammate in Jeff Bagwell, along with Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire.

So how should writers handle all these Steroid Era players that put up unprecedented numbers? To me, it’s simple — elect no one, dirty or not.

Earning election into the hall is a privilege, not a right. These players cheated the sport, and just because a large percentage of them were all cheating, that means we should just allow them to grace the hallowed halls of Cooperstown? Absolutely not. They have ruined the historic numbers like 61 and 755. They made 50-HR seasons seem like a routine accomplishment. They made career years at age-40 commonplace.They made a mockery of the sport.

I’m tired of the arguments to let the Steroid Era players in the hall. Some say they didn’t break any baseball rules by taking steroids because there wasn’t any rules against them. This is wrong. There was no testing, but that doesn’t mean there were no rules. The baseball guidelines clearly stated at the time that no performance-enhancing drugs or recreational drugs of any kind can be consumed by a MLB player.

There was no testing, but there was a rule. It’s like stealing from your office because no one is checking your pockets every night.

You also hear the argument that the Steroid Era needs to be represented in Cooperstown and that MLB can’t pretend it didn’t happen. These people clearly have never actually been to the hall. There is an entire area that covers the steroid era. They talk about McGwire and Sosa and the home run race of ’98, they have memorabilia from Bonds and Clemens. The era is fully represented. This is only talking about giving players plaques immortalizing them into baseball history.

But how could you punish someone like Greg Maddux or Ken Griffey. Jr., who did it the right way? Well, how can anyone know for sure? Not only that, as far as I know, only Frank Thomas and Curt Schilling spoke out against steroids while they were playing during the era. Nothing else was said about steroids by any other player. If a player kept his mouth shut despite seeing what was going on, then they can lie in the bed they made and stay out of Cooperstown.

The writers can’t agree on how to vote, so it creates a confusing mess where Mike Piazza will almost certainly be elected in 2016, despite Jeff Pearlman having sources that state that Piazza admitted steroid use to them in his book. Sosa can’t sniff the HOF despite not being tied to steroids except for the New York Times report, yet David Ortiz has the same connection but no one seems to care.

I’m sure Ivan Rodriguez will be voted in within a year or two of becoming eligible, despite becoming the incredible shrinking man the year that baseball began steroid testing.

Maddux and Tom Glavine joked that “Chicks dig the long ball.” Well, they can laugh their way out of the hall. Bagwell and Piazza admitted to taking androstenedione, which many used as a cover for steroid use, but fans are supposed to pretend that they did andro and nothing else.

Everyone that participated in the steroid era is guilty, either by using PEDs or staying quiet when they knew what was going on. Jose Canseco has said he knows steroid users have already been elected. The walls of the the hall are now stained with the filth of PED users because no one acted with conviction, no differently than how the game was stained 20 years ago because everybody sat idly by.

Baseball didn’t learn from its history, and now it’s doomed to repeat it.

Bill Zimmerman is a writer for www.RantSports.Com. Follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google.