Should McGwire be in the Hall?

Heh, awesome. By the way, my dad wanted to name me Pete for Pete Rose, but he was overruled.

 

Heck, that would have been cool. Just think...he could have named you Rose

 

Using steroids is as serious an infraction against "the sanctity of the game" as The question of Rose going into the Hall should be placed before the sportswriters. Let them decide, as they're deciding on the steroid cheats.

 

I dunno Grid. You may be right and I'm sure a lot of people would agree with you, but Rose tarnished the game by betting on his sport. He was in a position to influence a game's outcome based solely on what team he bet on. He could sit a player or start a player. He could pinch hit or force a pitcher to hit. He could decide not to start a scheduled pitcher in place of an unreliable one. He could keep his pitcher in too long. He had so many ways to influence the outcome of a game...with the intention of winning his bet.

No matter how big and strong the steroid users became, it couldn't help them do something that most people can't-- Hit a major league baseball in a game.

The reason I believe that you may be right is that all of them have given baseball a "black eye".

 

Protecting the game's integrity is really all that matters. It may sound corny but there is right and wrong. True, Mark McGwire or for that matter Barry Bonds have not been proven guilty of anything. They both I feel used the juice, it's nearly impossible to think otherwise. It's cheating, plain and simple. Gaylord Perry cheated but not to the degree that the juicers did. They have cheapened a sport that I cherish. If Mark McGwire would have looked into the camera during that hearing and said, I used steroids and I'm sorry, then you know and I know, he to nearly every degree would have been forgiven. He would have gone to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

 

Except for the Gaylord Perry example, I was with you...until this point.

Forgiveness shouldn't enter into it at all. Either he is qualified or he isn't. It certainly shouldn't be based on falling on a sword to appease the voters.

Another thing, what rule in baseball did McGwire break? It certainly wasn't steroid usage...it wasn't banned. I've met Gaylord Perry and got to know him for a couple of years. As much as I like Gaylord, he cheated, he reveled in it and me made a mockery of the game with his cheating. He broke the rules of baseball...unlike McGwire.

 

I know a lot of people have repeated this statement, but you're 100% wrong. There was no testing regime because the union refused to allow it, but steroids have officially been banned from baseball since Fay Vincent's order in 1991. Still, even if he hadn't, it still would have clearly violated the rules. If some chemist comes up with a previous unknown performance enhancer and some athlete uses it, they obviously shouldn't get away with that just because it wasn't specifically banned yet. That's clearly ridiculous.

 

I am not a proponent of any performance enhancement drug, but people want to lynch the man for breaking baseball rules...and I have never seen any evidence that he has. It's all been hearsay, finger pointing and revelations from a man in a book with no credibility.

When creatine is added to the list, are we going to go back and indict everyone that took that particular drug? I think most people would agree that creatine would fall under the category of performance enhancement. You'll find a jar of creatine in every clubhouse in MLB.

What I find amusing is many people in and out of baseball always suspected that McGwire has done something outside of lifting weights to gain his strength, but I didn't hear many people crying foul when he was chasing Babe Ruth's record. In fact, most baseball fans were cheering him on. Now, that his name is up for the HOF, those same fans want a witch hunt and tar and feather the man.

Collins, you brought up Clemens as a steroid user. Maybe or maybe not...but I'll bet you that when he is up for the HOF..he will get a pass

 

If there is as much evidence that Clemens used as there is that McGwire did, then he'll suffer just as much. If you can show that Clemens post Sox revival was steroid fueled, I don't think he gets into the hall.

Nor should he, since he is the fucking antichrist.

 

This is where I really start to get frustrated. We obviously know that he used andro, which is a steroid precursor (meaning it chemically isn't a steroid in its natural form but is converted to a steroid by the body when ingested), we know he's been accused in great detail by someone who appears to have far more credibility than you suggest, we have other people claiming that they provided him with steroids, we know that he circumstantially appears to be not only a steroid user but an obsessive one, and we know that he wouldn't deny usage under oath. For you to even suggest that we don't know McGwire used is outright asinine. We all know, just like we all know that Michael Jackson had plastic surgery even though he denies it and there is no definitive documentation we know about that "proves" it.

I don't know if you've ever watched the Dave Chappelle show, but you sound just like him in the courtroom sketch:

"Prosecutor: Mr. Chappelle, what would it take to convince you that R. Kelly is guilty?

Dave Chappelle: Okay, I'd have to see a video of him singing "Pee On You," two forms of government ID, a police officer there to verify the whole thing, four or five of my buddies and Neal taking notes, and R. Kelly's grandma to confirm his identity."

We know he used, so please give that a rest.

Not really. Supplements can certainly assist in muscle growth or injury recovery, but you obviously don't even have a clue about the relative effects of these things. Creatine does nothing by itself, so you can't just sit on a couch and get stronger by ingesting creatine. Meanwhile not only can steroids produce results if you don't work out, but medical studies have shown that you actually get more muscle growth from using steroids and doing no workouts than you do from working out regularly (and as you might expect, taking steroids and working out produces the biggest changes of all).

No, that's flat out wrong. A witch hunt is when people are wrongly persecuted for something they didn't do, not when someone gets caught and villified for something they did. McGwire used steroids. It doesn't matter if people accepted him earlier or failed to be more questioning or anything else. He used, he cheated. You need to get over yourself and accept that, and once you do, you can deal with the media's actions as a separate issue. The idea that McGwire should get a pass for cheating because we didn't call him on it back then is just dumb. Seriously, think about what you're saying there.

And vpkozel hit the nail on the head regarding Clemens. If we have witnesses coming forward saying that they supplied him with steroids and other witnesses saying that they injected him with them, then he'll be subject to the same scrutiny that McGwire is. Until then it's just speculation.