EWB Sports Discussion #1

[sahyder1]

I've been thinking of doing this for a while so lets hope it works out. The sports section has gotten a little stale aside from the in season threads for the various sports. We did more of this in the past and seem to do it every now and then in the ring so lets give it a shot.

The concept is simple. A topic (maybe 2 or 3 sometimes) a week. Take a side. I'll try to mix up the sports and try to keep the topics relevant to what is currently going on in the world of sports as much as possible. Apsham has his thing going in the ring right now but I wanna keep this a little different. While I've been reading all of apsham's threads in the ring, to me there is no sense in just a one on one discussion while the rest of the board just looks on and waits hours for one of the guys to respond. Hopefully we'll see a varying crowd in these threads from topic to topic. If you have ideas for a topic toss them my way. The idea is to spark a discussion that is different from the usual "my team is better then yours" that we all end up doing in the in season threads.

So here's topic 1. With the MLB season coming up and us being almost to the date one year removed from the Roger Clemens steroid hearings in Congress I want to see where EWB stands on this. The discussion is the Hall of Fame. Do these guys belong? How would you vote on them? This week saw the nomination of Rickey Henderson (an obvious first ballot HOFer) and Jim Rice (who ended up having to wait 15 years) while lower down on the ballot was Mark McGwire who doesn't like look like he'll ever get in. Keep in mind that to make the HOF a player must be on 75% of the ballots. You get on the ballot 5 years after you played your last MLB game. You must get atleast 5% of the vote in order to maintain your eligibility for the following years. After 15 years you come off the ballot and can only be voted in by other HOFers....aka the Veterans Committee.

For McGwire this was year 3 of 15 on the ballot. His name was on only 21.9% of the ballots.

There are some weak nominees coming up in the near future which should help some of the "tainted" guys.

Spoiler: Click here to view

Year *Players eligible for the first time for BBWAA election

2008: Brady Anderson, Andy Benes, Delino DeShields, Shawon Dunston, Chuck Finley, Travis Fryman, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch, Mike Morgan, Robb Nen, Tim Raines, Greg Swindell, Randy Velarde, Mark Wohlers

2009: Steve Avery, Jay Bell, John Burkett, David Cone, Mike Bordick, Ron Gant, Mark Grace, Rickey Henderson, Denny Neagle, Dean Palmer, Dan Plesac, Greg Vaughn, Mo Vaughn, Matt Williams, Mike Williams

2010: Roberto Alomar, Kevin Appier, Rod Beck, Ellis Burks, Andres Galarraga, Pat Hentgen, Mike Jackson, Eric Karros, Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Shane Reynolds, Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile

2011: Wilson Alvarez, Carlos Baerga, Jeff Bagwell, Bret Boone, Kevin Brown, John Franco, Juan Gonzalez, Marquis Grissom, Mike Hampton, Al Leiter, Tino Martinez, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo, John Olerud, Rafael Palmeiro, Troy Percival,

Benito Santiago, Ugueth Urbina, Larry Walker

2012: Bill Mueller, Tim Salmon, Tim Worrell

If I was a HOF vote I think I would have to vote in Bonds and Clemens as those guys were HOFers before they allegedly started to use steroids. Bonds to me is a definite yes and Clemens is definitely a leaning yes. People forget that Bonds was as complete a baseball player as there ever has been. He was a gold glove winning OF. He stole bases. He was the most feared hitter of his generation. You can make an argument that he was a top 5 all time position player.

Someone like McGwire you can definitely argue against because all he was in his career was a HR hitter.

We don't know how many other guys were on the juice. These guys competed against other steroid guys their entire careers....and were still a class above. To me that is HOF worthy.

The problem here is that the Baseball Writers Association doesn't have one set standard. Each of the five hundred something writers has their own guidelines. Some aren't voting for anyone from the steroid era. Some are voting for everyone as though nothing happened. Some are not voting for guys for a year or two as punishment but plan on voting for them in the future. Some are just handing in blank ballots.

I'll toss this out to start this. I definitely have more on this. Where do you guys stand?

[JStarr]

I'll be honest, I would let NONE of the suspected users in until they acknowledge on the record that their feats were aided. That way, if the writers want to vote them in, and at that point, yes, I'd put all these guys in, it would need to be duly noted on their plaques. Hell, I'd probably put them in their own separate room...right next to the mop closet.

Without steroids and with these numbers, fuck yeah, all these guys are in there. But if they want to take their pleas of ignorance to the grave or provide 100% exonerating evidence, they can watch the inductions on TV every year.

[sahyder1]

It'll be interesting to see if Bush pardons Clemens or Bonds on his way out in the next roughly 25 hours.

[Lowerdeck]

I can't see Bonds getting a pardon.

Maybe Clemens, but even then that's doubtful. Compean and Ramos would get one first, and even that's looking rather bleak.

[sahyder1]

Did anyone see La Russa defend McGwire's integrity earlier this week? He even invited him to spring training as a special instructor which McGwire turned down.

It was a long shot but yeah no pardons from Dubya foe any of the steroid guys.