Steroids shouldn't preclude the HOF

Those that know me know that I love baseball, this sums up my belief toward the baseball of this generation. I am also of the mind set that Mark McGwire, Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson should be allowed in the HOF!

Read on -

This story appears in the June 1st issue of ESPN The Magazine.

When Manny Ramirez got caught using a banned substance, baseball purists insisted that he had disqualified himself from Hall of Fame consideration. The logic is simple: The Hall's Rule 5 says election should be based on one's "record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played." Since Manny fails the integrity clause, he must be punished -- excluded as unworthy.

I don't think so. In the course of doing research for my book, Cooperstown Confidential, I found that the Hall, like any shrine, is full of secrets. Here's the worst-kept one: Not every immortal is a gentleman.

Some surely were. But Tris Speaker and Rogers Hornsby, both of whom belonged to the Klan? Probably not. How about Hank Greenberg and Joe DiMaggio, with their serious mob connections? Ty Cobb bragged of committing a murder and was suspected of fixing at least one game. Grover Cleveland Alexander pitched drunk when alcohol was a federally banned substance. The list goes on.

Harry How/Getty ImagesAfter looking at historical precedent, are Manny's transgressions really enough to exclude him from the hall?

And those are just the off-hours transgressions. Between the lines, old-timers were happy to use any substance they thought would give them an edge. In 1889, pitcher Pud Galvin drank monkey testosterone. Mickey Mantle was forced out of part of the '61 pennant race by an infection he got from the needle of a quack doctor who shot him up with a concoction of steroids and amphetamine. Sandy Koufax took so many nonanabolic steroids for his sore arm that he was sometimes "half high" on the field. Even Hank Aaron admitted to taking amphetamines once during a game. All of them are in Cooperstown -- and the walls haven't crumbled.

Of course, members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, keepers of the inductions, turned a blind eye on these (and other) indiscretions even before welcoming these stars into the Hall. Remember, it took a player, José Canseco, to spill the beans about widespread steroid use. Now, though, the writers have found religion. With the zeal of the newly converted, they voted by a 3 to 1 margin to keep Mark McGwire out of the Hall, and they threaten to do the same to anyone else who "polluted" the game with chemical enhancement.

They couldn't be more wrong. Players reflect their times. Today, grade-school students take Ritalin, and lawyers go to court on antidepressants or beta-blockers. In the end, aren't they performance enhancers? Why should ballplayers be different? They shouldn't, and baseball needs to accept that. Performance enhancement is now as much a part of the game as such other once-unimaginable innovations as night baseball, integration and free agency.

Baseball writers can be replaced.

The Hall of Fame has always been a passive and compliant institution. Now it has a chance to make history instead of merely recording it. But that will require honesty and transparency. A good start would be to judge players only against their contemporaries, only by what they do on the field. In 1998, for example, McGwire faced the same pitchers as everyone else, and he hit more home runs than anyone else. We now know other hitters were juicing then too. So were lots of pitchers. Comparing his numbers to Babe Ruth's makes no more sense than comparing Ruth's to Home Run Baker's. Different eras, different stats.

Transcendental Graphics/Getty ImagesHaving played in entirely different eras,how speculative is it to compare current numbers against Ruth's.

The Hall can't just exclude two generations of superstars. And if the writers don't like this, well, they need to be reminded that they serve as Cooperstown's electoral college at the pleasure of the Hall 's controllers -- a nonprofit organization, not MLB -- and they can be replaced. There are plenty of potential voters awaiting their chance: former major and minor leaguers, college coaches, magazine journalists, TV and radio broadcasters, members of SABR, fantasy leaguers and serious baseball bloggers. Those electors would be younger and less monochromatic than those in the current BBWAA, and less bound to the false pieties those writers have perpetuated over the years. What would their Hall of Fame look like? Exactly like the old one. The Cooperstown museum will include a chapter on steroids as a part of baseball's narrative, just as it includes the chapters on the Negro Leagues and how equipment evolved.

And in the plaque gallery, Manny and Bonds, A-Rod and Clemens will hang next to greats of other eras, right where they belong. They earned their spots the old-fashioned way -- by doing what was necessary to stand above their peers.

Zev Chafets is the author of Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues and the Inside Story of the Baseball Hall of Fame (Bloomsbury USA), available in bookstores in July.

And That's What I Think and Agree With.

Don't Plan On Eating In Azle

My daughter is currently away at a resident camp with the Girl Scouts. This camp is located just outside of the town of Azle. A sleepy looking little town about an hour from us.

They have drop off and pick up times at the camp to coincide with dinner (4PM - 6PM). You think the town would take advantage of this and be ready to feed some hungry parents and / or campers (depending on whether it is drop off or pick up time).

After we dropped her off and got back to the town, we eyed a Pizza Hut. Cool, I could eat some deep dish or maybe a P'zone. We walk in and are almost immediately seated (the guy had to wipe down the table first). Then we sit there for a solid 10 minutes while we are ignored. No one even acknowledged our presence. So we decide to walk next door to the Jack-In-The-Box. Hey, at least we'll get our food sooner, right?

Wrong! We stood there at the counter for at least 5 minutes. My son even yelled, "HELLO!". It was a virtual ghost town. There was one employee making fries or something, but he didn't care that there were people waiting at the counter.

We decided that Azle wasn't ready for us or our money and headed back towards the "city". We ended up in Lake Worth and a Ci Ci's.

The Ci Ci's we usually go to is rated as one of the busiest and best in the country. In fact, there have been managers from other stores and locations checking out the one in our town to get a feel for the way to do it right.

Now, the one in Lake Worth was actually better than the one in our own town for a couple of reasons. The brownies were brought out warm with the center still gooey. You know what I mean. And the cinamin rolls were switched out even before the last few were taken from the previous pan. The pizza and salad bar were like ours, which is well cared for. I think, lastly, that, because it wasn't really busy, I enjoyed it more.

We are about to go pick my daughter up from camp and you can bet we won't try to eat in Azle, look out Lake Worth, here we come.

Keep up the good work Lake Worth, Azle has a lot to learn.

And That's What I Think.

Rhode Island Closer to Changing Their Name

Really? Who new? More than that, who cares? Rhode Island is actively and supposedly for the first time in years, close to changing their name. To what you ask?

It turns out that all this time the state was not simply called Rhode Island. This is news to me as I have been to Rhode Island and learned about the state in school. I've even had chance to see the state on several maps that I've looked at over my 40 years.

No, the actual name is State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. So the opponents say that it's just a waste of time to shorten what is the longest state name, while the proponents say that the name, long or not, is a reminder of slavery.

Are they just splitting hairs here? I think so. Slavery is a part of our history. It is a sad part, nonetheless, but it is a part of what this country went through. By changing the name of a state, can we erase the past? The answer quite simply is no.

We've all made mistakes in our lives but as long as you learn from them and don't make the same mistake again, you'll be better for it.

In short, change the name, don't change the name, either way, it won't change the past. Let's all move on and get along.

And That's What I Think.