Bonds, Clemens. Who cares?
Posted: Friday, January 30, 2009 2:14 PM
The Hall of Fame has been on my mind a lot this week. Part of this focus is because I am reading the names Barry Bonds, Greg Anderson, Brian McNamee, Kirk Radomski and Bobby Estalella.
One perjury trial (Bonds) is imminent and another (Clemens) is in the works. Neither player is relevant so I just don’t care. Not about the legal process. I prefer to never see either man on the field again and, despite Bonds’ Rickey Henderson fantasy, I don’t have worry. It’s just that my head hurts when I read about the ongoing nonsense surrounding the aforementioned people.
What bothers me is that this could be the enduring legacy of BALCO era- baseball being dragged through endless mud by a subset of humans that deserve no attention and the ravenous lawyers always ready to pounce on a case. The government’s dogged pursuit of Bonds is a factor as well and anyone who dabbles in this stuff after all of this deserves their fate.
So I try to keep my eyes on the great, those who are worthy of Hall of Fame consideration. And when I hear the football media promoting interest in this weekend’s voting for Canton, I realize how baseball’s Hall of Fame stands above all. It is the sport’s ultimate honor, one that has defined generations of players and become the ultimate banner of excellence.
And there were two passages that struck me as very relevant in the last week. Both related to the Hall of Fame. In a New York Times column, David Brooks quoted Ryne Sandberg’s Hall of Fame acceptance speech, “I was taught you never, ever disrespect your opponents or your organization or your manager and never, ever your uniform…These guys sitting up here (fellow Hall of Famers) did not pave the way for the rest of us so that players could swing for the fences every time up and forget how to move a runner over to third. It’s disrespectful to the game of baseball…I didn’t play the game right because I saw a reward at the end of the tunnel. I played it right because that’s what you’re supposed to do…If this validates anything, it’s that guys who taught me the game did what they were supposed to do and I did what I was supposed to do.”
I don’t recall Sandberg’s speech but those words rang true to me as a succinct summation of the credo followed by the majority of major leaguers I covered over 22 years. When teams played with that sense, like the 1991 Minnesota Twins, the season was an absolute joy and the team was rewarded. When not everyone played to that standard, there was discord (the first years of Barry Bonds’ career with the Giants is Exhibit A).
After reading those words, I thought of Jeff Kent. He is the most perplexing, maddening player I encountered. He was bright and, on the occasion when the spirit moved him, could share insight with personality. More often, he shut out the baseball world, playing the game as Sandberg defined but with no joy. But Jeff Kent aced the Sandberg test. For that reason, he should have his day in Cooperstown.
Then I read a column in the San Francisco Chronicle in which Scott Ostler wondered about the future of baseball’s Hall of Fame. He writes, “The Hall has become increasingly irrelevant. Five years from now we could be facing this situation: We hail the newest enshrinee, Jeff Kent, while we speculate on the fate of Barry Bonds…The Hall of Fame is fading because the admission standards have become too vague and the game has become too dirty.”
Provocative stuff and I agree for the most part. Baseball hasn’t suddenly become dirty, rather its dirt has been exposed to far greater scrutiny than any other major sport. But Ostler’s main point is valid -- how will we explain the Hall of Fame to future generations? How do we explain to our grandchildren that as Ostler writes,“Gaylord Perry applied foreign substances to the ball while Roger Clemens shot foreign substances into his fanny” and justify that Perry is in and Clemens may be out.
I didn’t want to tackle the Hall of Fame electorate – again -- but Ostler offers a wise solution: “Give the voters specific instructions to ignore steroids, rumors, conventions, whatever. As long as steroids are part of the voting equation, nobody gets voted in or blackballed without controversy. The public will have to accept that some Hall of Fame enshrines were steroid-assisted, just as some were segregation-assisted.”
Amen.
If some in the Hall of Fame electorate persist in acting as the moral police, the Hall of Fame will be rife with more inconsistencies and irregularities than ever before. Clear rules will produce a Hall of Fame that will address the truth of the BALCO era while acknowledging the best of an era when, sadly, way too many players indulged.
FIVE MORE SWINGS:
1.THE ANGELS…are a team that has a lot of work to do. No Mark Teixeira no Manny Ramirez (if we believe their words), the loss of Garret Anderson, Jon Garland and Francisco Rodriguez in addition to Teixeira and the Angels appear to have lost much of the edge they enjoyed in the AL West.
2. SO WOULD THEY BACKTRACK AND SIGN RAMIREZ? Voices are chiming in from the chorus -- Larry Bowa bemoans a Manny-less Dodgers team, Jerry Manuel talks about how much sense Manny would make for the Mets and Albert Pujols wants the Cards to defy their stingy ways and sign Ramirez. Does any of this gab lead to the four-year deal Ramirez wants? Three teams need and can afford Ramirez, we think. But we are not sure that the Dodgers and Mets (l’affaire Madoff) have the cash. No question the Angels do, but do they have the will?
3. FOR THE GIANTS TO SIGN RAMIREZ…I am told they have to find a taker for Aaron Rowand. For all the flak over the Barry Zito contract, know that Rowand has four years and $48 million left on his deal and in year one of the deal he produced 1 RBI in September.
4. THE METS TALK TO PEDRO MARTINEZ. I still think Pedro comes back to Queens. He gave the current Mets’ administration its greatest jolt of credibility. He also earned a lot of money for two injury-plagued years. But the Mets knew that would happen. Mets general manager Omar Minaya is loyal and will show appreciation for all Pedro did in 2005-06.
5. AS GREAT AN ACHIEVEMENT IN SPORTS…as I have witnessed in my lifetime is going on in Australia. Roger Federer will play for the Australian Open title. And it will be the 14th time in the last 15 Slams that Federer has reached the final. He had a 10 Slam streak ended at last year’s Australian Open and has run off four more since. Understand that the next greatest streak in the Open Era is four (Rod Laver and Andre Agassi). Astounding. Extraordinary. And no one knows.
