MLB Minutes - 7/27/09

With the induction of Jim Rice and Rickey Henderson into the Baseball Hall of Fame this past Saturday, a couple of Hall of Fame related topics have been bantered about in the last few days. In particular, they once again revolve around the induction of suspected steroid users and of course, Pete Rose.

Let's start with Rose, who according to the New York Daily News, is once again having his Hall Of Fame eligibility reviewed by Commissioner Bud Selig. Of course, we've been down this road before, most recently in 2002 when Rose finally came clean and admitted to betting on baseball, but only did so because it was in conjunction with the release of a book. He had been supposedly close to getting his eligibility restored, only to have Selig see through the shenanigan and put it off again. Well, now Rose no longer qualifies to be on the writer's ballot, having missed his 15 year window after retirement and if reinstated, would be at the mercy of his contemporaries, those who make up the Veteran's Committee.

Now, Rose is never going to fall into good graces with the moral majority, having sold himself and his soul for just about any coin he could get from it. He disgraced himself, his team, and the game when he chose to bet on the game when he was in a position to actively affect the outcome. However, his playing career merits entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame, having garnered 17 All-Star appearances, 2 Gold Gloves, an MVP award in both the regular season and the World Series, 3 batting titles, 3 World Series Titles, and of course, the career hits record. In the end, it'll be in the hands of the people that have the most to gain or the most to lose by his presence there, his contemporaries.

Aaron Wants Asterisk for Steroid Users

Hank Aaron seems to be fairly outspoken this week. After having voiced his opinion on Pete Rose, both to the media and also to Bud Selig, Aaron turned his attention to steroid users and their place in the Hall of Fame, in particular Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds.

When asked about if they should be allowed in, he didn't answer definitively, but did say that if they were allowed in, then they should have an asterisk put next to their names in order to separate them from those that played the game cleanly. Aaron's quote was as follows:

"You put these guys in, put an asterisk beside their names," Aaron told the San Francisco Chronicle. "To be safe, that's the only way I see you can do it. I played the game long enough to know it is impossible for players, I don't care who it is, to hit 70-plus home runs. It just does not happen."

Now, I've written fairly extensively in the past about the use of the asterisk and the power of speculation. I've called into the question who gets given the responsibility of determining the assignment of the asterisk and what qualifications a player has to meet in order to garner such a prestigious achievement. The short answer is the simplest, no one has the knowledge or the right to pass judgment on another party based on speculation or stereotyping. Not you Mr. Aaron, not the Baseball Writers of America, and certainly not the Commissioner himself. If you think steroids has damaged the game, you have no idea the amount of trouble that rampant speculation can cause, and if you don't believe me, just ask a bunch of suspected witches from Salem in the late 1600's or suspected Russian conspirators during the McCarthy Era. Its not a good enough reason to exclude any parties and it certainly isn't a good enough reason to segregate them either.

You want the real answer to the steroid problem, use separate wings, not for the purpose of cordoning off steroid users, but separate them by generation. If you can't pinpoint who cheated, then everyone who can and should make it in from their generation should be kept together, to be compared against their peers, as they should be anyway. Stop concentrating on the record books, because there is no changing what has been wrought. Instead, change the perception of a players spot in history. Mark McGwire didn't play with Hank Aaron, and shouldn't be enshrined as such.

Unkept Thoughts

- Sox fans are panicked over their recent slide out of first place and their current position two games behind the Yankees. Look at it from both the optimist's and the pessimist's side. As an optimist, you can be happy knowing that they still lead the Wild Card by 2.5 games over Texas. As a pessimist, you can think just how worse things would be if Boston HADN'T won all eight games against New York thus far.

- Toronto is continuing to try and move Roy Halladay, but their demands of Philadelphia, their closest match, are outrageous. Yes, they should get 3 solid prospects at the very least, but to expect the team to trade their top two, major league ready, pitching prospects, as well as their top hitting prospect is asking just a bit much. I wouldn't be surprised to see Halladay stay put this season.

- Cleveland is looking at trading both Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez, in either a package to one team or separately to multiple teams. While the package deal may be appealing, they are likely to match-up enough with another team that has the needs for both and the prospects that are necessary to get the deal done. The Dodgers have been rumored to be looking at both, with Tampa Bay, Boston, New York, and other clubs looking at acquiring one of the pair.

- Mark Buerhle's perfect game last week was a great pick-up for MLB for what has seemed like kind of a mediocre year for the sport. The perfect game was Buerhle's second no-hitter for his career, which is saying a lot for a guy that isn't a hard-thrower, nor is he regarded as a strike-out pitcher. So much for the thought that in order to succeed in the majors, you need to be equipped with a cannon.