Hall of Fame Inductees On January 9th

On January 9th, the National Baseball Hall of Fame will announce the 2007 class of inductees. Among the candidates on the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) ballot are: Steve Garvey (Los Angeles Dodgers), Bobby Bonilla (Pittsburgh Pirates), Goose Gossage (New York Yankees), Andre Dawson (Montreal Expos), Tommy John (Los Angeles Dodgers), Don Mattingly (New York Yankees), Orel Hershiser (Los Angeles Dodgers), Jim Rice (Boston Red Sox), two candidates (Jose Canseco of the Oakland A's and Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals) with major steroid-related question marks, and, of course, the two obvious choices, Cal Ripken (Baltimore Orioles) and Tony Gwynn (San Diego Padres).

You can see the entire BBWAA list here.

I'm sure all of the candidates on the ballot (of which there are a whole bunch I didn't even name) were good players, with varying degrees of success. But, of the big group, I (assuming I had a vote) would vote for: Ripken, Gwynn, Gossage, Hershiser, John, Dawson, and Rice.

I don't think that candidates who either admitted to using steroids (Canseco and the late Ken Caminiti), or are highly suspected (McGwire) of using them should be elected. Use of steriods is tantamount to cheating, and by allowing cheaters in on the basis of what they did while cheating will cheapen the accomplishments of the greatest players who did what they did without using performance enhancers. If Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, and Frank Robinson did what they did without steroids, it's completely unfair to compare the steroid users to them.

I enjoy baseball, and I play as often as I can. I'm sure other folks who are reading this also play baseball. And I'm sure they'll agree with me that cheating isn't how you play the game. Frank Robinson, my favorite player of all-time, said that those found to have used steroids should have their records wiped, and I tend to agree.

-Neal