Time to Think About McGwire Again

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

We know Bud Selig’s view of Mark McGwire has changed. We’ll soon find out if the same is true for the gatekeepers of the Hall of Fame: the nation’s baseball writers.

Ballots for the Hall were sent out this week to the voting members of the Baseball Writers Association. (The ballot appears at the bottom of this post; please fill out and post your choices on True/Slant site.) The voters punished McGwire in his first two years of eligibility: only 23.5 percent voted for Mark in 2007, and 23.6 put him on their ballot last year. Players need 75 percent for election.

Will Selig’s endorsement of McGwire as the new hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals change enough minds?  Bud was so enthusiastic about McGwire’s return to baseball that he used the platform of the World Series to begin clearing Mark’s name, ignoring his own rule that no major announcements are made during baseball’s showcase. Perhaps he has a guilty conscience, for no one in baseball profited more from the widespread use of steroids than the current commissioner.

And what of the conscious of the Hall of Fame voters? For many of them, the disgust with McGwire is little more than revisionist history. Google some of the bigger names among baseball writers and see what they were saying in 1998 when McGwire was found to be taking Andro—which the NFL, NCAA, and Olympics all recognized as a steroid. My old friend Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe captured the common sentiment when he called the story a  “tabloid-driven controversy” and equated Andro to aspirin.

Many now cite McGwire’s refusal to testify when questioned by the House Oversight and Reform Committee in March of 2005 for leaving him off their ballot. Few understood then—and most still don’t know now—what was really happening in that room that day.

As I’ve written in previous posts, the hearing was little more than a set up that left McGwire with no safe choice. Deny any steroid use and face a perjury investigation. Admit to steroid use and Balco investigator Jeff Novitzky, who was sitting in the room that day, would have hauled him back to San Francisco to face a Grand Jury.

Novitizky—who a year earlier had illegally grabbed the results of baseball’s confidential 2003 testing program, the one that was leaked this year—was clearly looking to collect as many baseball players who may have taken steroids as he could find. Refuse to cooperate and McGwire would have been held in contempt of court. That worked out real well for Greg Anderson. So, McGwire’s either a rat or on his way to jail.

Fact is, there was no reason to hold a hearing that day. Several Congressional committees had already held hearings. President Bush had already called for action in his State of the Union address two months earlier. Selig and union leader Don Fehr had already instituted a new, stronger drug testing program that was to be implemented that very season. Bringing McGwire, Sammy Sosa and others in for televised hearings was nothing more than a big campaign commercial for the same committee members who had or would pass on looking into such issues as the Jack Abramoff scandal, the Valerie Plame leak, the failed post-Katrina response, abuses at Abu Ghraib, and many others.

Oh, they did take an active role in the Terri Schiavo case. Thank you, Henry Waxman and Tom Davis.

It’s now been more than four years since McGwire refused to talk of the past. We are still waiting for him to talk about his new job with the Cardinals. Guessing that won’t come until after the Hall vote closes on Dec. 31. The result will be announced Jan. 6.

My take: McGwire belongs in Cooperstown. Hall of Famers are supposed to dominate their era. McGwire certainly did that—on and off the field.

There are a few other interesting names on this year’s ballot, which appears below. Roberto Alomar, who set the standard for second basemen–and accurate spitting—in the ’90s would be on my ballot. (Full disclosure: I fell one year short of being a Hall of Fame voter, but that is a story for another time.). So would Jack Morris, one of the best big game pitchers I’ve ever seen, and Bert Blyleven, a dominant pitcher with the best curveball—ever.

I’d wait a year for Edgar Martinez – there is a difference between first ballot entrants and everyone else. I’m still undecided about Lee Smith, and I’d love to vote for Don Mattingly, but I can’t. He just didn’t have enough big seasons.

Here’s the Hall of Fame ballot. Let me know your choices.

Roberto Alomar                  Kevin Appier

Harold Baines                    Bert Blyleven

Ellis Burks                           Andre Dawson

Andres Galarraga              Pat Hentgen

Mike Jackson                     Eric Karros

Ray Lankford                     Barry Larkin

Edgar Martinez                  Don Mattingly

Fred McGriff                       Mark McGwire

Jack Morris                        Dale Murphy

Dave Parker                        Tim Raines

Shane Reynolds                 David Segui

Lee Smith                            Alan Trammell

Robin Ventura                   Todd Zeile