Nice Guys DO Finish Last

There was a lot of talk about Baseball Hall of Fame voting this year.  Some of the most notorious individuals of the "Steroid Era" we're on the ballot for the first time this year. This included Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and a few others who had been accused (but not proven) of doping.

As it came down to the final hours, there was a lot of talk about no one getting into the HOF for the first time since 1996.  That the writers would make a statement and slam the door shut on any and all cheaters.

And that is exactly what they did.  Except they forgot to let a certain group of people in first...

The players who didn't cheat.

Craig Biggio, Jack Morris, Tim Raines, Lee Smith, and Curt Schilling.  All players who have never had their names associated with steroids. And all players that will have to wait to make speeches in Cooperstown, if they are destined to at all.

I expected certain players to get shutdown.  I expected guys like Bonds, or Clemens, or Sammy Sosa to be denied baseball's greatest honor. I even told myself beforehand that I wouldn't be surprised if Mike Piazza and Jeff Bagwell didn't accumulate 75 percent of the necessary votes (Don't get me wrong, those guys deserve to get in, but that is a different rant). But no one? That's absurd.

What upsets me the most is that I read more than one article from a voter, boasting that he sent in a blank ballot...

Really? You need to go that far to prove a point? Jack Morris is on his second to last year on the ballot. He put up Hall of Fame numbers and didn't get mixed up in steroids at all.  But you got so caught up in trying to prove a point that you couldn't vote for one guy who deserved it.

This is the problem with the BBWAA. They know they hold the key to baseball heaven. And half of them get a kick out of making sure that everyone is aware that they can withhold a player's legend status.

We could discus who used steroids all day (in fact, we have been for the past six years or so). But that wasn't the big issue today. The issue was that while trying to maintain the integrity of the game, the Hall of Fame was denied players who have that integrity.  They didn't do anything wrong. Why are they the ones who get punished?

It seems that amid all this controversy, we've forgotten about the players who played the way they were supposed to. We should be rewarding them for staying pure, not dragging them through the mud with the bad eggs.

Most (not all) of the BBWAA clearly had one goal in mind this year: Make sure the cheaters stay out, and worry about everyone else next year. And for that, I say, "Shame."