While he didn’t play for the Baltimore Orioles, Joe Morgan is without a doubt one of the greatest second basemen of all time. Needless to say, he’s a hall of famer. And when hall of famer’s talk, people listen.
Last week Morgan made waves when he wrote an open letter to hall of fame voters asking them to keep steroid-users out of the hall. First and foremost, I agree with Morgan. Many people love to point to the fact that the likes of Ruth, Cobb, and others weren’t the greatest citizens in the world. Be that as it may, they never challenged the integrity of the game. Anyone who used a performance enhancing drug did just that.
There are a million arguments for and against allowing guys like McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds into to hall of fame. I might actually see a guy like Barry Bonds having a chance, because people were talking about him as a first ballot hall of famer when he was in the minor leagues. And that’s really the sad part; a lot of these guys were gifted players capable of reaching Cooperstown beforehand.
Again, I’m with Joe Morgan on this. Now there are people out there who probably take it a step too far. I’ve heard arguments that anyone who played in the steroid era shouldn’t be in the hall. That would include the likes of Cal Ripken Jr. as well. And nobody out there could ever say that Cal shouldn’t be a hall of famer. Do we know that he definitively never used a PED? I suppose we don’t – but in truth we know.
There are also obvious users, such as some of the ones I named above. But what about guys who simply had rumors out there about them? Do we preclude them from being in the hall of fame simply because someone alleged that they did steroids?
Former Oriole Brian Roberts was named in the Mitchell Report, and he later admitted that he had juiced – once. Now obviously Roberts’ numbers probably don’t stack up as a hall of fame player. However let’s say that they did for just a moment. Is a guy who popped a steroid once not going to be allowed to be inducted?
Again, there are some guys who are cut-and-dry users; those are the easy ones. And I suspect that those are the ones about whom Joe Morgan is primarily talking. But there’s a lot of gray in this situation also. It’s also fair to mention that while publicly being against the use of steroids, MLB knew it was going on and they turned their backs. So nobody’s totally blameless for this, but a few are totally guilty.
Birdland Crush 