I’ve said this before about Dwight Gooden.
You grab me in the late 80’s and start paying me $2 million a year as a teenager, and yeah I’m going to have a good time. I would have been on the Upper East Side every night with my Mets jersey on so that you would have no doubt that it was me. Who knows what trouble I might have gotten into.
A few years later regular ol’ me used to frequent the Dublin Pub on Long Island. There were Mets there almost every Sunday night chasing the same girls I did. If I were a Met I probably would have gotten a few more dates. Make me a 25 year old millionaire and maybe I would have done some jerky things.
Later, in this world where I’m a player, someone comes to me and suggests that andro/the cream/whatever might help me slug through August or rehab faster or keep me playing at my best in my free agent year – who knows, maybe I would be tempted.
Maybe I could have played in the 60’s and taken some greenies.
Keith Hernandez did cocaine. We like him. Doc & Darryl have had their faults. Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle? Colorful characters. We like them. We forgive. Not everyone can be ex-Marine long-time family man Tom Seaver.
To have a Hall of Fame that ignores guys with 500 or 600 or 700 (!) home runs is silly. To ignore guys with 350 wins will be silly. A-Rod is already at 613 home runs at age 34 and is signed thru 2017. Whatcha gonna do about that baseball?
Put them all in, with the druggies, the spitballers, the bat-corkers and the racists. It’s a museum.
You can have a plaque say “Pete Rose retired with 4,256 hits, the most of any player. He was declared permanently ineligible from baseball in 1989.” Why can’t a plaque say “Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris’ season home run record in 1998 and was celebrated throughout the land. In 2010 Mark admitted taking steroids including during the 1998 season.”
As a parent I do my part. Junior knows A-Rod took steroids. He knows we don’t root for Michael Vick while acknowledging he had an MVP-caliber season.
The 1919 World Series still belongs to the Reds no matter what went on. Clemens won 354, Bonds hit 762 and 73, Pete hit 4256. Too bad. I’m sorry you don’t like it. Baseball has already been ruined when I have to look up that 762 number. We used to know those things.
Bud Selig should have Amnesty Day and invite everyone to confess to whatever they want. The media (and bloggers) can have a field day and then we can all move on.
If any former Mets wind up taking Bud up on the offer I’m sure we’ll be sad/angry/frustrated for a few days and then go back to liking them.
Just ask Doc.
I agree with some of the post but for once MLB is making the right decision, not the popular one. Should there be a section in the mesuem for the players who choose to compete clean against the dirty players? How about the guy who got cut from his AA team because he was clean and had warning track power. Will the current players laugh at the sign in there locker room which says you cannot bet on baseball if baseball recoginizes Pete Rose in it Museum. The sports world has become consequence free and society has to a certain extent also. If and when you and Junior take a ride up to cooperstown and junior asks why so many of these “great” cheaters are not in the hall, you can use it as an opportunity to show him that doing the wrong thing does have consequences.
As for non-performance enhancing drugs, this was a part of our culture. Esp for some young people, it happens because their friends might be into it. And hey, it’s not as though recreational drugs are all bad. There are respectable people out there who enjoy occasional mj or shrooms for a reason. Life isn’t all about stats and work.
In any case, who cares what Cooperstown thinks? I put no stock in it anyway, it’s just a bunch of votes. I know who’s in my HoF. Gehrig, for his performance and his career-ending speech. Ruth for building a ballpark. Aaron for the asterisk. Willie Mays without a doubt. Reggie, because no one was more driven in the clutch, whether on base or at the plate. Showalter, for building the 90s Yankees. Gil Hodges for being Brooklyn’s Mr Baseball all these years, for the Bklyn Dodgers or the NY Mets. Mattingly, Keith Hernandez two of the ultimate gamers. Gooden and Guidry for the best pitching performances on NY teams in my lifetime. Stan Musial because even Bklyn Dodger fans applauded him. Bob Gibson for his fearlessness. Ted Williams and Carlton Fisk. Pete Rose and Johnny Bench for the Machine, and Sparky Anderson for winning with them and the Tigers. Mark the Bird Fydrich because he was so cool. If he had a proper TJ surgery, he’d have had a long career. Maybe Johnny Damon, whose pluck and attitude might have won championships for two teams. Ok – Jeter – I’ll say it. The play against Oakland among others shows he wins in ways the stats never show. He’s not playing for stats, he’s playing to win. I’ll add Seaver, whose name represented ‘excellence’ in NY ball in the 70s. I would have added Oakland’s brash brothers if they hadn’t been juiced. Tony Gwynn, for being a gentleman. If he had been on a NY team, he’d be off the charts in popularity. I’ll think of more, but for now, this is it.
Ruth, Gehrig, Reggie,