Beginning with Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro we have seen that the Hall of Fame voters are not looking fondly on nominees that have their pasts tied to performance enhancing drugs.
Looking back to the stars that emerged in the late 1980’s and through into the early 2000’s, an alarming number of our favorite players were implicated in the steroids scandal.
Baseball saw some of the most hallowed and revered records in our national past time broken by the games modern athletes. Home run records fell, pitchers seemed ageless, and mediocre players became great.
Of course the scandal spread well beyond the game’s elite. Minor League players were implicated in taking steroids, their motivation to make it to The Show. Fringe players took steroids in hopes of holding onto their roster positions or improving their numbers in hopes of a bigger payday down the road.
Now that we are seeing these players reach Hall of Fame eligibility for the first times, the baseball voters will decide how these once immortals of the game will be remembered for all time.
Active players who have ties to the steroid era will have the chance to prove they are able to produce Hall worthy statistics under the assumption that they are now performing clean of any chemical-aid. Will it be enough though? Or will they too find their list of accomplishments not quite good enough when compared to the true immortals of the game.
After all, in most fans’ minds, 73 is not important as 61, nor is 762 as important as 755. 300 Wins does not have the same magical aura to it, nor do the 3000 hit or 500 home run plateaus.
At one point these players were all considered locks for induction in Cooperstown, now only history will tell if their accomplishments reside with the best that have ever worn a uniform, the accomplishments we can safely assume were accomplished without any artificial aid.