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The Rog's Rant

McGwire didn’t cheat because there were no rules

Mark McGwire will be remembered for a lot of things in his baseball career, but he will be remembered most for one thing he said to the U.S. Congressional hearings in 2005 on drug usage in Major League Baseball.

“I’m not here to talk about the past,” a clearly uncomfortable McGwire responded when asked if he ever took any performance enhancing substances in his career. In other words, he basically took the 5th Amendment, which is his right to not answer the question.

On Tuesday the Baseball Writers Association of America exercised its rights as well – they exercised their rights to not vote McGwire into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It’s amazing that the man who first broke baseball’s greatest record – the 61 home runs in a single season held by Roger Maris (and not only broke it but shattered it with 70!), will be remembered most for one line uttered in a hearing after his playing days were over. But that is the fate of Big Mac and that is where baseball is these days I’m afraid.

The baseball drug scandal is a mess and nobody knows what to do about it, especially retro-actively. So in the meantime they will keep McGwire – who had a legitimate Hall of Fame career in my estimation – out of the Hall.

The 545 voters who had ballots are free to vote for whoever they wish of course and in the cases of two writers who sent in blank ballots, they are free to vote for nobody if they wish as well. And there can be a bit of an argument made that McGwire shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame I suppose.

But his vote total of just 128 votes (23.5 percent) sends a clear message that a vast majority of the voters didn’t vote for him because of the tainted drug situation.

If there are no drug issues, he gets a lot more than 23.5 percent. And even if he didn’t get in on the first ballot, he’s get in eventually. Now he may not get in at all.

McGwire ranks seventh on the all-time home run list with 583. He hit 70 homers to break the Maris record. He was an All-Star 12 times. Thanks to his walks he had a very high on-base percentage and he was one of the most feared sluggers of his day, without question.

Did he use steroids? Maybe, but we don’t know baseball never tested for them. Maybe Cal Ripken Jr. did too for all we know.

Did he cheat? No. Why? You can’t cheat is there aren’t any rules to cheat. Of course steroids are illegal, period, but maybe EVERYBODY on that ballot from this era was on them, if they were as wide spread as some believe.

If you’re not going to vote for McGwire because of that, then you need to prove that everybody else was clean. And we can’t do that because there was no testing.

Mark McGwire got such a relatively paltry number of votes for Cooperstown because people think he’s a cheater. Maybe he is – but how can we say that when there were no rules?

To cheat, there has to be rules to cheat. There were none. All that is left now is one big mess.

And what happens with Sammy Sosa? Rafael Palemerio? And Barry Bonds?

Are they any different than Big Mac? I’m not a McGwire fan by any means, but he’s the scapegoat here for baseball failing to deal with the issue. So the verdict is in – rumoured drug cheats are out of the Hall of Fame.

Let’s see how the voters feel when some of those other names come up for induction.

Comments on The Rant of December 22 on fun and games in sports:

“Gambling is the reason there’s no fun in sports anymore The Rog. Too many people have too much money riding on the game to actually sit and enjoy them.” – Allen in Toronto.

“I still love sports but I must admit I do take it far too seriously some times. I even think the Toronto Maple Leafs still have a chance at winning the Stanley Cup before I die.” – Ted in Pickering.

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