The 2013 Baseball Hall of Fame vote will forever live in infamy as only the third vote since 1960 to deny Hall of Fame (HOF) entry to every single one of the 37 players on the ballot.
Not one of the eligible players received the necessary 427 votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) to get in, despite the admittedly strong talent pool up for election.
The most prominent headline to emerge from the vote is the first time eligibility of players heavily accused of taking banned performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Roger Clemens were all up for the first time, while Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire were denied HOF entry for the second consecutive year. The five aforementioned players stand out in this round of annual balloting because they all testified before Congress in the past decade about their personal usage of PEDs.
The infamous Mitchell Report conducted by Senator George Mitchell in 2007 highlighted Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Palmeiro and Sosa as five of many players who could have ruined the fundamental and beautiful integrity of baseball by cheating via banned substances. While technically none of the players have been formally proven guilty, the rumors continually to swirl and the controversy remains ongoing (Clemens was only just acquitted in a perjury trial accusing him of lying under oath about his use of PEDs last year).
Former teammates and trainers have come forth and admitted to either witnessing or even administrating steroids in players accused of “juicing” (like the five above). The omnipresent Victor Conte, head of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), claimed to supply players like Barry Bonds with PEDs and personally served prison time for money laundering and illegal steroid distribution. The ridiculous suspicion is almost overwhelming, and this particular HOF vote marks the first time a healthy amount of players on the ballot were involved heavily in baseball’s shameful “Steroid Era.”
In my opinion, steroids have absolutely no place in baseball or any sports. It’s plain and unequivocal cheating, and I’m an incredibly strong proponent of much harsher punishment (including lifetime bans) for proven users of banned substances. Melky Cabrera’s recent admittance to using PEDs and foiled attempt to cover it up using a fake website yielded a standard mere 50-game suspension and full rights to play again next year. Cabrera, who was the All-Star Game MVP and led the league in hitting percentage, was a key cog for the eventual-champion Giants and helped them accumulate the record they needed to get into the playoffs by cheating illegally.
This monstrosity of a circumstance highlights the problems with the Steroid Era and the awful effects steroids have on the greatest game in America. Cheaters’ getting elected into the HOF is simply unacceptable, because they didn’t earn the honor in any way.
If you look at the pure statistics and accomplishments of the “Steroid Five,” a strong case can be made for all five getting into the HOF (Bonds is the all-time home run leader, while Clemens has accumulated the third most strikeouts of all time). However, the suspicion looks far too imminent and overwhelming for players connected to steroids to be allowed into baseball’s hallowed Hall. After all, all five will be eligible for at least another 13 years.
If the suspicion surrounding the players fades and they can be really considered innocent from any sort of illegal PED use, I will cheer them into the hall along with the rest of their fans. But cheaters have no place in the HOF.
