PED Cloud Still Rains on Some Players

Baseball Hall Of Fame. Most attribute this to the extreme use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) during the 1990s. A player even having his name mentioned in a sentence with a known PED user cost players, like Craig Biggio, to not receive the required 75 percent of the vote from the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) for induction into the hall at Cooperstown, NY. Even though there still is not one shred of remotely credible evidence against Biggio, besides idle gossip, he was the closest to the hall in 2013 with 68.2 percent of the vote ....


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Announcing the 2014 MLB Hall-Of-Fame Inductees

It’s now official for the first time since 1971 there will be six living inductees to Major League Baseball’s Hall-of-Fame. This includes three players along with the three managers, Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussaand Joe Torre, who were voted into the hall in December 2013. The three players inducted into MLB’s HOF for the class of 2014 are pitcher Greg Maddux, pitcher Tom Glavine and first baseman and long-time designated hitter Frank “The Big Hurt” Thomas.

Last year’s Major League Baseball Hall-of-Fame announcement came and went rather quickly, leaving the baseball world in shock. It was the first year in baseball history that absolutely no one, living or deceased, was elected into the hall at Cooperstown, NY.  Of course it had to do with the issue of performance enhancing drugs (PED’s) and their rampant use during the 1990′s. Many of the eligible players had and still have that stigma attached to their names, that asterisk that will most likely haunt them forever regardless of their induction or not. In 2013, the only players to come close to the 75% of the vote needed for induction were Craig Biggio with 68.2% and pitcher Jack Morris with 67.7%. This year marks Biggio’s second year on the ballot and he came in just shy of induction with 74.8% of the vote. Morris actually lost votes from last year even with it being his 15th and final chance to become a member of baseball’s most elite club.

This morning all eyes were on Greg Maddux. There was talk, until MLB.com writer Ken Gurnick made his ballot public, that Maddux would make history by getting voted in unanimously. With that opportunity gone, Maddux still had a chance to make history by eclipsing Tom Seaver who was elected with 98.84% of the vote. Maddux, who played for the Chicago Cubs, most notably the Atlanta Braves, and the Los Angeles Dodgers over the course of his 22-year big league career, received 97.2% of the vote from the members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA).  Maddux’s resume is most certainly incredible. He accumulated 355 wins, won 4 consecutive Cy Young Awards and was an eight-time All-Star. Maddux is one of only ten pitchers to have over 300 career wins and 3,000 strike outs. He also won a record-setting 18 Gold Gloves as well as being the only player ever to win at least 15 games over 17 straight seasons. Needless to say he will now be immortalized where he belongs, in Cooperstown, NY.

The second player elected to the HOF today was part of one of baseball’s greatest pitching duos on the Atlanta Braves, alongside Greg Maddux. Tom Glavine spent the majority of his career vying for Cy Young Awards with his teammate taking home two in 1991 and 1998. Glavine, a ten-time All Star, was also a four-time Silver Slugger. He was MVP of the World Series in 1995 with the Braves winning both games two and six of the series. In his game six performance he pitched eight innings of one-hit shutout baseball with the only run in that game coming off a home run by his teammate David Justice. Glavine also played in four other World Series (1991, 1992, 1996, 1999) with the Braves and achieved success as a member of the New York Mets, playing there from 2003-2007, making two of his All-Star appearances during that span. He returned to the Braves for his final season in 2008.

The third and final player receiving baseball’s highest honor is one of the only players to spend the majority of his career as a designated hitter (he also played first base), playing for the Chicago White Sox from 1990-2005, the Toronto Blue Jays in 2007-2008 and had two stints with the Oakland Athletics in 2006 and again in 2008. Nicknamed “The Big Hurt” because of his powerful swing and home run hitting abilities, Frank Thomas was a menacing presence in the batter’s box.  Thomas was a five-time All-Star, two-time American League MVP (1993, 1994), four-time Silver Slugger, the AL batting champion in 1997 and the 2000 Comeback Player of the Year. But his real accomplishments lie in his overall numbers. He is tied for 18th all-time with 521 home runs and has a lifetime career batting average of .301. He is the only player to play seven consecutive seasons hitting over 20 home runs, 100 RBI, 100 walks while maintaining a .300 batting average. His final MLB game was played with the Oakland Athletics on August 29, 2008. He went 2-4 even after having spent most of the season on the disabled list.

This year’s Hall of Fame announcement far eclipses last year’s. With six living inductees, three managers and three players there is a lot to celebrate in the baseball world. The induction festivities and ceremony which will take place in Cooperstown from July 25-28 will be one for the ages.

For more on the MLB Hall of Fame Announcement check out MLB Nation.

Writer Gurnick Ensures Maddux Won't Be First Unanimous HOF Selection

Although Major League Baseball’s 2014 Hall of Fame class members will not be announced until Wednesday, it was predicted, even expected, by most that pitcher Greg Maddux would be the first unanimous HOF selection in MLB history. Maddux considered one of the greatest, if not the best pitcher of all time, had been tracking at 100 percent according to The Baseball Think Factory, where they have been keeping track of votes that have been released to the public early. That is until today.  

MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick, who covers the Los Angeles Dodgers, voted for only one player – five-time All-Star Jack Norris. Members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) are allowed to vote for the top ten players on the ballot they deem worthy to enter MLB’s HOF. Gurnick’s public release of his ballot has left many wonder what happened? And some would even ask does this guy have any idea what he is doing? 

According to Gurnick’s ballot he voted only for pitcher Jack Morris who has been on the ballot since 2000. Morris has never received more than 67 percent of the 75 percent needed to be inducted into Cooperstown and in some years he received as little as 30 percent of the vote. His case has been a divisive one among the writers over the years as his numbers can be seen as questionable. In the 1980s he gave up the most hits, home runs and earned runs of any other pitcher. On the other hand, he was a five-time All Star who played on four World Series Championship teams. Here is Gurnick’s reasoning on voting for only Morris:

Morris has flaws — a 3.90 ERA, for example. But he gets my vote for more than a decade of ace performance that included three 20-win seasons, Cy Young Award votes in seven seasons and Most Valuable Players votes in five. As for those who played during the period of PED use, I won’t vote for any of them.

Any player, he writes, “who played during the period of PED use”? So that means anyone who happened to be born during a certain time period and who had the audacity to be good enough to want to play Major League Baseball should be punished because of the actions of a few? Morris pitched from 1977-1994. Some of his contemporaries are admitted PED users like Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, but how does that constitute ruling out what would literally mean decades of players? 

And what about now? Even with the new PED policies put forth by the MLB, there are still players out there using. And more specifically when does the “PED period” he is talking about end, if ever? Also to be considered are the use of amphetamines, which were used as performance enhancing drugs beginning in the 1960′s. They are now banned by MLB (without a prescription). If the use of banned steriods is considered cheating then the use of banned amphetamines should be considered cheating too. There are players already in the HOF who were known amphetamine users. Do you remove them from the Hall?

Basically, Gurnick’s logic on going against, what could have been a monumental and historic decision by the BBWAA, just doesn’t add up. Unfortunately for Greg Maddux, who is the only player to win 15 games in 17 straight seasons and is the first of only two players (Randy Johnson) to win the Cy Young Award four times consecutively (1992-1995), he will not be the first player unanimously given baseball’s highest honor. Maddux will certainly get in on this, his first, HOF ballot but not in the historic fashion that was expected.

For more on Greg Maddux check out MLB Nation