What a Waste Of Money

I normally enjoy Rick Reilly, but I found his most recent column completely unreadable, and not just because it's an NBA playoff preview.  I didn't even get that far.  I stopped reading after the second paragraph, the "Barry Bonds, convicted felon" part.  Yes, he was technically convicted of a felony, but forgive me if I don't consider obstruction of justice to be a particulary heinous crime.  It's not like he killed someone or is actually going to spend time in jail, which is more than Michael Vick or Plaxico Burress can say. 

Even more, does anyone even care about Barry Bonds anymore?  The federal government just wasted a whole bunch of the taxpayers' time and money to tell us all something that we already knew.  Barry Bonds took steriods and most likely lied about it, but there was no way to prove it.  Wow, I'm glad my tax dollars were used so effectively.  It's a good thing they didn't have any rapists or murderers (you know, REAL criminals) to prosecute.  This just in, the Roger Clemens trial is going to go pretty much exactly the same way.

I know I'm in the minority with my general stance on the Steroid Era, which I'll get to in a minute, but I don't think I'm alone in wondering when the government will go back to worrying about things that are actually important.  Barry Bonds took steroids.  So did Roger Clemens.  So what?  Is it really worth all that time and taxpayer money to pretend we still care?  Or that what they did actually matters?  Or that public opinion about either one is actually going to change?

The real shame here is that Bonds and Clemens aren't going to take their rightful places in Cooperstown.  Like I said, I know I'm in the minority about the Steroid Era, but my stance isn't going to change and I'm fine with that.  The 1990s happened.  Major League Baseball ignored the steriod thing while it was happening, and it's not fair for us fans to be made the judge and jury now, 10 years after the fact.  Just like it's not fair that the writers who actually vote for the Hall of Fame are the ones left to decide whose numbers are legitimate and whose aren't.  Some of them hold it against everyone from the era, which is their right, while others take it on a case-by-case basis.  I understand that most of you agree with the writers.  I respect your position, but I disagree with it. 

We don't know who was on steriods, so we can't say "Barry Bonds was, so his numbers aren't legitimate, but Omar Vizquel was clean, so everything he did is valid."  Either everybody's numbers are suspect or you just have to accept the era for what it was.  Major League Baseball considers all statistics put up during that era to be legitimate, which is good enough for me. 

Besides, steroids or not, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were two of the best players of their era.  Which brings me to this question: If the Hall of Fame is a place to recognize the greatest ever to play the game, how do you explain why the all-time hits leader, all-time home runs leader, and the man with more Cy Young Awards than anybody aren't members?  The very good ESPN.com baseball writer Jayson Stark touched on this the day the Bonds verdict came out.  He's right.  Think about how weird it'll be to visit Cooperstown in 10 years and players like Bonds, Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, etc., don't have plaques, but guys like Bill Mazeroski and Rabbit Maranville (he played for the Braves in the 10's and 20's, look up his stats) do?  (It's here that I need to point out that Ty Cobb, the first person ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, was an unabashed racist who may or may not have killed a man.)

The Hall of Fame is a place to recognize the greatest players in baseball history.  The GREATEST players in history.  Using active players as an example to illustrate my point, Brian McCann is a very good catcher, a multiple-time All-Star, and the All-Star MVP last year.  He's a VERY GOOD catcher, not a GREAT catcher.  Joe Mauer is a GREAT catcher on his way to a Hall of Fame career.  Nothing against Brian McCann, but he's not Joe Mauer.  There's nothing wrong with that, but fast forward 15 years and imagine Brian McCann in the Hall of Fame, but not Joe Mauer.  As a person who watches baseball in 2011, you'd sit there and wonder why McCann's in the Hall of Fame over the clearly superior player.

That's, unfortunately, what looks like it might happen with Bonds, Clemens and some others.  Steroids or not, they were the greatest players of the 1990s.  If Major League Baseball can pretend they weren't taking steroids, so can I.  I can't in good conscience say that a bunch of guys who belong in the Hall of Very Good should be given places in the Hall of Fame because the voters don't want to give those spots to the guys who deserve them.  The best players of the 1990s were on steroids.  Deal with it.  If you want the Hall of Fame to continue what it should be, get over yourself and put the best players from that era where they belong.  With the best players from every other era.