by SAN DIEGO – Sixteen people walked into a room Sunday to decide whether Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens or Fred McGriff, among others, should be inducted into the Hall of Fame. They came away with unanimous agreement that McGriff belongs and overwhelming agreement that Bonds and Clemens don’t. Welcome to Judgment Day, not just of a moment but of an era.
The Hall of Fame Baseball Contemporary Era Committee fixed the most egregious mistake of the past decade by writers with the choice of McGriff. Never able to get 40% of the vote in 10 tries on the writers’ ballot, McGriff won the vote of every man and woman in that room, a rarity on such committees that even Bud Selig couldn’t.
The clean sweep pointed out the folly of most writers to never get behind a player who came to the plate more than 10,000 times and posted an .886 OPS. Only 14 other players who made it to a Hall of Fame ballot, and not connected to PED, hit as well for this long and all of them were inner circle Hall of Famers.
McGriff suffered on the writers’ ballot compared to steroid users. He won home run titles with 36 and 35 home runs before players and their numbers became cartoonish. When he hit 32 home runs in 1999, for example, he finished 17th. At least half of the sluggers in front of him were connected to PED use.
Then came Judgment Day. The PEDs won the era but lost in that room, sending a signal to Bonds, Clemens and the like a week into the 15-year anniversary of the Mitchell Report, the 20-month investigation that had their names all over it. The sign: forget it, you won’t be getting into the Hall of Fame for the foreseeable future.
These committees are important endorsements for the writer voting process. More people in the Hall have been elected by these oversight committees (180 of 341, or 53%) than by writers. The committees fixed the omissions of candidates like McGriff, Minnie Miñoso and Larry Doby.
Hall of Famers, executives and three members of the media (two of whom had previously voted for Bonds and Clemens) made up the 16-person committee this time. It was thought that Bonds and Clemens would do better with a jury of their peers than with the writers, having peaked at 66% and 65% in 10 tries with the writers. (Candidates need 75% support for election). Instead, they fared much worse. Hall members and their proxies have made it clear that you do not want them in your club.
The Hall does not announce the full results of the vote. He does this to save a candidate embarrassment. Those who feed at the bottom are advertised only as getting “fewer than four votes.” It could be three. It could be zero. But there is no need to scrub it. That’s the support Bonds and Clemens received: too low to even mention.
This is the legacy of PEDs. The players who used them made a conscious decision to ruin the foundation of the competition: fair play. Rules or no rules, they did it knowing there could be consequences if their secret were ever found out, which is why the behavior had to be covered up and cannot, even a generation later, be admitted.
We understand. We understand why they used it. From Ken Caminiti, who told me so in 2002, to Jason Grimsley, who just wrote about it in a book, many saw the use of PEDs as the rationalized price of competing and were unapologetic about it. But celebrate the election with the highest honor in sports? That is a bridge too far for too many people.
Whether it’s 300 writers, 16 people in a room, or a random sample of dozens of people on the street, you won’t find 75% of people who think PED use should be excused or celebrated. A majority could, as happened with the writers, but not a super majority.
The Hall of Fame odds for Roger Clemens, left, and Barry Bonds look pretty low after their latest setback.
Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports; Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports
Bonds and Clemens have had 11 chances in the Hall and are 0-for-11 each, including 0-for-2 with two separate bodies in the last 11 months. His next opportunity won’t come until 2025 at the earliest. A selection committee will decide if they should reappear in the next vote of contemporary players. Mark McGwire has yet to get a second chance. And players like Sammy Sosa, Jeff Kent, Kenny Lofton, Dwight Evans, Lou Whitaker, Keith Hernandez, David Cone and Bernie Williams will be looking for their first chance at the Hall’s second chance.
That Bonds and Clemens weren’t picked this time isn’t surprising; his low level of support it is. Almost as surprising was the lukewarm support for Curt Schilling, who as a candidate is Don Drysdale with the best command and postseason record, and a controversial Twitter account. Schilling received only seven votes. They keep him out of the Hall because of his objectionable language long after he finished playing. There is no candidacy like yours.
McGriff may have seemed like the “safe” candidate on a controversial ballot, but in fact he should have been in the Hall long ago. The context didn’t matter here. His career was indisputable. He hit 493 home runs (the most ever for anyone not previously drafted and not tainted by PEDs), posted a .917 OPS in 50 postseason games, played the third-most games at first base, and had a better OBP and slugging percentage and more than 100 RBI and 30 home runs than Eddie Murray. Not bad for someone he said after he was picked, “I got cut from my high school team.”
Said McGriff, who played his last game 18 years ago, “It was worth the wait.”
Even in the prime of his baseball life, McGriff had to endure arguments about PEDs. He wouldn’t say it, but his candidacy was hurt by those who used PEDs.
“I know I put a lot into this game, I worked hard to get to this point,” he said. “I went out there and just played the game the way it’s supposed to be played.”
It wasn’t long before he was asked on his conference call about Bonds.
Always classy, McGriff said: “Honestly, right now I’m just going to enjoy tonight. We can discuss that. I haven’t given it much thought. I’ll think about it a bit.
Next July, McGriff will take a podium in Cooperstown, a place he said he has never seen, and give a speech as an inductee into the Hall of Fame. He may only be joined by Scott Rolen, the returning candidate on the writers’ ballot with the most support (63%), unless you think Carlos Beltrán can get 75% support on his first try despite the stain of sign stealing from the Astros. scandal. It may have taken too long, but the trial finally landed on McGriff’s side.
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