I wonder how the speech list is going to go. Will they get some umpire, or GM, or mascot up there to hum a few bars? Maybe Bud will have something to say. Maybe they'll just induct Dubya. After all, the steroid era* pretty much jumped off in his locker room.
To make a point, the writers are going to freeze out everyone. Their reasoning must be that, if the're not going to let in Bonds and Clemens- who, as the theory goes, would've gotten in without the steroids- they are not going to let in guys like Piazza and Biggio** ahead of them.
The cheating doesn't necessarily bother me, mainly because, unlike the voters, I'm not a sanctimonious fuck that thinks I have to prove a point. I'm a narcissistic fuck who thinks I have a point to prove...to myself, of course.
It's not as if this period was distinct for its cheating. "Cheating" has been going on as long as there has been baseball. For that matter, cheating has been going on for as long as there's been civilization. Anyone that thinks that drugs are out of baseball should tell that to the guys hopped up on Adderall and Provigil.
I was bothered these guys went so overboard that the veil lifted. These guys were well beyond blatant, which is what it took for people to notice.
Bokolis is going to suggest- because they have to put in somebody (I know the votes are already cast)- put in Jack Morris. Why? Because, if I was stuck up in the tower and I had one game to save my life- and Pedro was vacationing in DR and unavailable- I'd run out Jack Morris. What his pedestrian stats don't tell you is that he did what he needed to do to win the game. If they got him 6 runs, he gave up 4 or 5, if they got him two runs, he gave up one. As importantly, over the 15 viable years of his career, he averaged 7-1/3 innings per start. If it came to that, I'll get Mo to get me the last five outs.
I gotcha, kid.
Can you imagine Jack Morris on the roids? No? Well, imagine Clemens off the roids; based on his career arc***, he'd've wound up slightly better than Morris.
* - Regardless of what the media is feeding y'all, the steroid era started in 1987, jumped off in the early 1990's and metastasized after the 1994 strike. Also left buried by the media was that, while steroid use was already rampant by the late 1990's, starting in 1994 and running to about 2004, with the most outrageous degrees being from 1998 to 2002, the ball was juiced. The ball being juiced was doing way more than the players being juiced.
** - By Bokolis' standards, Biggio is not a Hall of Famer. However, based on the lower standards (Rice, Dawson, Puckett, Blyleven, etc.), he certainly fits. After all, he has the most doubles of any right-handed batter. Having the most of anything is a qualifier in and of itself. Only Pujols and A-Rod have any shot of overtaking him. The way it looks, A-Rod is going to need a new hip to catch Biggio and, let's face it, while Pujols is scheduled to turn 33 next week, he ain't no fucking 33.
*** - Assuming Clemens was on an enhanced regimen from the 1997 season, his prior 4 years suggest that, if he could even have lasted another four years- which is highly questionable- at the same performance level, he'd be at about 230-150 with about 3.20-ish ERA, 1.17-ish WHIP and over 3000K. With three Cy Youngs and a MVP to his haul, that would've gotten him in. As it was, his performance from 1997 onwards is HOF-caliber in and of itself.
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