Steroid Accusations Likely To Bench Baseball Hall Of Fame Candidates
The results of this year's baseball Hall of Fame voting will be revealed on Wednesday.
Given the exit polling, it appears both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, as well as other candidates stained by accusations of steroid use, will not be admitted.
Among other reasons for not voting for them, I would suspect that accusations against Lance Armstrong for using performance-enhancing drugs in cycling is bound to have some carry-over effect. At a certain point, when the circumstantial evidence for drug use is so compelling, who can possibly believe these guys?
Of course, on the other hand, you may subscribe to the belief that through all the eons of humankind on this earth only a handful of baseball players circa the end of the 20th century learned the secret of how to get stronger, naturally, even as their bodies aged.
And after all, it isn't as if the Hall of Fame voters are obliged to employ the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard. It's just a matter of denying somebody an honor, and given all the reasonable reasonable doubt involved that seems like a fair enough penalty to assess to the cheaters.
Good grief, they won't let Pete Rose, the player, into Cooperstown for breaking baseball law even though what he was convicted of came years after he was finished as a player.
But, unfortunately, Bonds and Clemens and their colleagues under suspicion can remain on ballot purgatory for as many as another 14 years, which will be even worse than having to periodically go through the interminable debate about raising the debt ceiling.
It's too bad, too, because arguing who gets into Halls of Fame used to be a bit of fun, except perhaps for the poor devils whose Hall-worthiness is being scrutinized.
The Two-Way
Clemens And Bonds Put On Baseball Hall Of Fame Ballot