It's being said that Mark McGwire's failure to be inducted into the Baseball Hall Of Fame on his third go-round is a direct result of the widespread suspicion that he used steroids when he was breaking records and bashing the cover off the ball in the 1990s. Which may lead you to think that the road to Cooperstown will be rocky when other notable juicers come up for induction over the next few years. But McGwire is a lousy litmus test for the entire steroid era, because his numbers simply aren't Hall-worthy, illegal substances or no.
Yes, McGwire's career total of 583 home runs is extremely impressive. His career on-base percentage of .394 and slugging percentage of .588 are staggering. There's no doubt that for about five years in the '90s, he not was not only one of the great power hitters of all time, but one of the dominant figures in American popular culture. And when he was at his peak, he certainly made baseball a more exciting game to watch.
But by almost every other measure, McGwire falls short. Way short. There's his anemic .263 lifetime batting average. His measly 1,626 hits. He couldn't run -- 6 career triples and 12 career stolen bases -- and he wasn't a very good fielder. Longevity counts a lot towards HOF credentials, and McGwire lasted 16 seasons, but he played fewer than 100 games in four of them because of injuries.
In a nutshell, McGwire was a one-dimensional player. Granted, it was a hell of a dimension, but does that make him Hall-worthy, assuming you remove steroids from the equation? I don't think so. It'll be much more interesting to see what happens when players like Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens -- who can't be denied entrance based on their numbers, but may get shut out for moral reasons -- get their names on the ballots.
Personally, I think it's silly to bar anyone from the Hall based on anything but their stats. Countless gamblers, pill-poppers, cokeheads and other unsavory gents have already gotten their plaques, so why are the voters suddenly getting so uptight?
But baseball writers are nothing if not subjective when it comes to Hall Of Fame voting. How they feel towards players, as human beings, matters more than what those players actually did on the field when it comes to getting into Cooperstown. And McGwire, right up to the day he sort of incriminated himself in front of Congress' steroids hearing in 2005 by tearfully refusing to "talk about the past," was almost universally well-liked and respected.
So who knows? If Big Mac decides to come out of seclusion and starts wining, dining and charming the right baseball journos, we might see those vote totals start creeping up. And if the rosy glow of nostalgia for McGwire's magical 1998 season one day overshadows the scandal that followed, he might be talking about the past at Cooperstown after all. But he still won't deserve to be there.
I also don't remember hearing HoF voters demand steroid testing in baseball. No one cared about it at the time. Put all of these atsericks into the Hall to remind people not to let it happen again.
In my view - the single season home run record is still 61 held by Roger Maris and the career home run record is held by Hank Aaron.
Gambling and taking payment to throw games, I say, keeps you out, because these make us doubt that a player or team were trying to win every inning of every game.
Regarding steroids, I take a different point of view regarding their threat to baseball. Frankly, the era was a time where the best became the best because of natural talent, work ethic, and chemistry. We see this Inspector Renault "shock" from the owners regarding the widespread use of performance enhancers, but, really, it just looks like they view it as a bargaining chip and we never saw a dime of reimbursement for the fans' loss of "innocence," or the increased ticket sales when McGwire, Sosa, or Bonds rolled into town.
Chemistry cannot replace natural talent or work and is unhealthy. I revile steroid use in high schools and colleges. At the pro level, though, it was about the elite taking the next step to win. I wonder, given widespread pro use, is the Hall of Fame keeping McGwire out because of steroids or because he was caught?
What has knocked Mark's HOF bid off the rails was his behavior before Congress. If he never gets issued a notice to appear there he is a first ballot inductee.
It is ironic that Bud Selig prevaricated to Congress about baseball's finances and has paid ZERO price for it while McGwire is now a pariah.
But just so you understand, I would not vote McGwire into the hall in the wake of that committee appearance. I'm just sayin'.
The Hall of Fame voters started down a slippery slope when they admitted Ralph Kiner, and the slope leads directly to McGwire. If Kiner is a Hall of Famer, how do you keep out McGwire? They were both one-dimensional NL home-run kings of their respective eras. Neither could run, field, steal, or hit for average, and neither was ever league MVP. An exact head-to-head match-up of their numbers is difficult because Mac had about a thousand more ABs than Kiner did, but really, aren't they the same player?
If anything, I give McGwire the edge because he played on three pennant winners and a world champion, while Kiner hardly ever left the cellar. (Generally, all other things being equal, I give the edge in HoF consideration to the player with post-season experience.)
As a lifelong Met fan, I love old Ralph, but his election opened the door for one-dimensional sluggers like McGwire. (You can make the same argument for Kingman: What was Kiner but Dave Kingman with a firmer grip on reality?)
So I assume you will now express outrage that Killebrew was tapped for the HOF?
Look, I don't care for McGwire, either. His performance in front of that congressional committee was such a disgrace that I could never vote him into the hall on ethical grounds. But stop it with saying Mark's career numbers weren't hall worthy. That's just flat false. McGwire's career was also hindered by being somewhat injury prone and he also played in an Oakland Coliseum that was a tough home run hitter's park before it was renovated to accommodate the Raiders. Metropolitan Stadium was much more hitter friendly.
I agree with you, 3Finger, Ralph Kiner shouldn't be in the Hall. Or if he should, it's more for his decades of announcing Mets games and (especially) "Kiner's Corner" than for anything he did on the field.
As for Killebrew -- good call. His stats really weren't as great as I thought they were. But to be fair, batting averages were much lower in the '60s than they were in the '90s. And 573 homers was much more rarefied air in 1975 than 583 was in 2001.
I would never "express outrage" over anyone's getting admitted to the HOF, with the possible exception of Dave Kingman.