Kuzul

I’m a St. Louis Cardinals fan. All of my friends know this. I have been since the day my favorite player, Mark McGwire got traded to them in 1997. The next year Big Mac broke Roger Maris’ age old HR record.

In 2001, a third baseman with a bright future made his debut with the Redbirds in McGwire’s last season—Albert Pujols. As we all know, since 2001 Pujols has undeniably become the best player in baseball. Even Cubs fans admit that (at least they’re right on something).

Last offseason, the Cardinals failed to sign Albert Pujols to a contract extension. And since the day spring training started, all I’ve heard from all my friends is how next year Pujols is going to be wearing Yankees pinstripes, Dodger blue, or god forbid, a Cubs uniform.

Or they say that the Cardinals are going to trade him to a contender this season. I’ve got news for you haters. He’s not going anywhere. Yet. So until this season is over, let’s stop talking about where Albert Pujols is going to be next year.

Throughout his career, Albert has respected the game. Always. He has refused over the course of his career to consider contract negotiations while the season is going on. This means that from the first pitch of spring training until the last pitch of the Cardinals season, he doesn’t talk dollars and cents. He wants to focus on his game, and on the team.

In my opinion, that’s how sports should be. Let the GM’s talk trades and transactions, but don’t talk to the player about extensions. So I respect Albert for asking his agent not to negotiate during the season. But in no way has Albert EVER insinuated that his refusal to negotiate in-season is an indication that he will not be playing under the Arch next year in St. Louis.

I understand my friends. They love to see me writhe in pain as I consider Albert playing in a different uniform. I’ve said that if Pujols leaves, I’ll burn his jersey. To me, Albert means ALMOST just as much to St. Louis as Lebron James did to Cleveland.

He played high school ball in Missouri (closer to Kansas City), was drafted by the Cardinals, and came up through their farm system. But just because he has opted to become a free agent at the end of this season doesn’t mean he wants to leave. Albert’s agent said that “The expiration of today’s deadline does not eliminate the possibility of Albert returning to the Cardinals in 2012, but simply delays negotiations until the conclusion of the Cardinals’ season.” In no way does that imply that he wants to leave.

I’m telling you. There is no chance in hell that the Cardinals decide to trade Pujols this season. If it happens, I’ll buy you a beer. And after the season, the Cardinals have negotiating rights to Pujols for five days. The team and its star player are not at an impasse over whether Albert wants to remain a Redbird, they are at a roadblock due to money.

Albert means too much to this team. He is the iconic figure in the city. If the team loses Albert, they lose their identity. But I’m not ruling out the possibility that Albert could head elsewhere. He may think he’s worth more than what he is, or the Cardinals may think he’s not worth what the market dictates.

But until Albert actually hits free agency five days after the World Series ends, let’s stop talking about it. Nothing’s going to happen until then, and I want to enjoy watching the man play in the Cardinals’ uniform. Because I’m going to have a heart attack if I think of him stepping to the plate in Busch Stadium for the Cubs one more time.

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A sport bruised by work stoppages. Millionaires fighting with billionaires. Fans showed their displeasure the best way they knew how. They stopped going to games.

Things picked back up in the late 1990s, with more fans piling into more parks than ever before.

There was some thought that fans came back because of the sudden surge of offense via the most exciting thing in the game, the home run.

Things really picked up in 1998 when Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr. and Greg Vaughn all finished with 50 or more home runs, with McGwire and Sosa both eclipsing the record set by Roger Maris in 1961. Nine other players slugged over 40 homers.

A whole bunch of failed drug tests, grand jury indictments and 13 years later left people connecting the dots between that power surge and the use of performance enhancing drugs. Most notable of course being steroids.

So while saying home runs saved baseball was cliche at the time, there is now a thought that the very thing so many of us are upset about is what saved baseball.

I’m not so sure about that.

In the early 1980s, baseball had two short work stoppages. Eight days in 1980 and two days in 1985. Sandwiched between those was a 50-day dispute in 1981. Still, attendance stayed north of 20,000 per game league-wide, eventually rising to over 25,000 for the National League and nearly 30,000 for the American League.

Just as things were starting to get better, they got uglier.

The 32-day lockout in 1990 was nothing compared to the 232-day strike launched by the players in 1994 that wiped out the World Series for the first time.

After attendance averages had reached as high as nearly 37,000 for the senior circuit in 1993, the fans seemingly had enough.

Then came the aforementioned power surge and fans flowed back through the turnstiles as if they had turned the other cheek or decided to give their national pastime another chance.

Attendance rocketed into the 32,000 range for the AL and north of 38,000 for the NL where McGwire and Sosa were putting on the fireworks show.

With reasonable regression expected after the home run record chases, attendance league wide dropped to an average of around 30,000 per game in 2000. Throughout the next decade, we’d see a spike as high as 32,694 in 2007 with the low being around 28,000 during a small hiccup in 2002.

The league isn’t seeing the attendance it did in the late ’90s, but it’s not seeing the lows of the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s either.

With relative labor peace in baseball compared to the nasty fight with the NFL, and the one expected with the NBA, things have been smooth.

A sport once marred by strikes, lockouts, bickering and fighting has seen nothing but immense growth over the past 16 years thanks to revenue sharing, media and merchandising booms and more.

Did steroids save baseball?

I don’t think so.

Baseball, in all its beauty and glory, saved baseball. Just by showing up.

Alex Carson is a Mariners and MLB writer and blogger. Follow him on Twitter: @AlexCarson

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While baseball is known as America’s pastime, the sport is no stranger to controversy.

Facing on-and-off-field scandals since before the dinosaurs walked the earth, Major League Baseball continues to battle its tarnished reputation.

In a sport that requires class and natural skill, rather technique, many players have tried to cheat the system.

From the most prolific home-run hitters in history using steroids during their primes to players purposely losing games to win bets, baseball has faced arguably the most controversy of any professional sport.

While baseball enters a new era with dominant pitching and egotistical millionaires, it is on the way to cleaning itself up.

But let’s look back at the craziest scandals and stories in MLB history.

Enjoy.

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We now know that cheating was a part of baseball for the last two decades. There are legitimate reasons to believe between 50 percent and 80 percent of players were using some form of performance enhancing drugs. For many, the improvements flew under the radar, preventing suspicion.

But in a few belligerent examples of perceived immunity, players exploded for other-worldly numbers. These are a few of the most glaring examples of such seasons.  

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Andy Pettitte is that soft spoken lefty with the slow Texas drawl. A man dedicated to his faith and his family, tenacious, unflappable in the moment.

He may be among the best pitchers the New York Yankees have ever seen. But he’s also a confessed cheater.

People find it easy to forget that. After all he’s ‘Andy Pettitte’, a good old boy just as likely to read a bible as a scouting report but it is a fact nonetheless. The most shocking revelation to come out of the Mitchell Report, the most easily excused and dismissed of all the PED indiscretions in an era marred by them.

The apologists sang that it was merely HGH and not steroids. They said he was only trying to heal faster in an effort to help his team win games. Sportswriters weakly jabbed when they could have gone in for the kill and his teammates stood beside him without exception.

No player before or after has ever received the public support of the fans and other players more than Andy Pettitte on the day of his repentant press conference, not Alex Rodriguez, and certainly not Jason Giambi. A press conference that felt more like a wake and a rally to help him get through the hard times.

The championships, the post season dominance, a two time 21 game winner, and three time all-star, the first word that comes to mind when I think of Andy Pettitte isn’t “cheater” and I wonder why. I wonder why that isn’t the case with Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Palmeiro, and Roger Clemens. I wonder why they don’t get to hide from their tarnished legacies the way Andy Pettitte does.

Andy Pettitte may never make it to the Hall of Fame and his PED use may play a part in that. Exceptionally good but not great, Pettitte wasn’t a baseball God like the others. He was hardly ever featured on the cover of magazines, never the story, never “the guy”. He was a grinder, not a star beyond our reach.

Even now we understand Pettittes decision to leave the game at a relatively young age. We understand that the man doesn’t want to be away from his family anymore and we empathize in a way that we never do with pro athletes. Andy Pettitte was authentic even when he wasn’t; he was never presented as the perfect player, or the perfect guy, never packaged.

No the first word I think of when I think of Andy Pettitte isn’t “cheater” its “throwback”, and that’s why his cheating stings a little more.

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The Steroid Era has been one of the most exciting movements in all of sports.  It provided baseball fans like me growing up as a kid in the 1990’s with life-changing home runs to watch.

These unbelievable seasons of home runs, delivered by a lot of our favorite players, seems surreal in 2011. It’s almost like it never happened.

When I was a youngster, I didn’t understand the magnitude of what McGwire and Sosa, and Canseco did. Now in 2011, people are shocked by a 50-homer season.  

Looking back, my top ten memories of notorious athletes as a baseball fan are as follows…

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This is a difficult time for many of those who believe the game will forever be tainted by the Performance Enhancing Drug era.

I refuse to call it the “Steroid Era” as many of the so-called cheaters never actually took a steroid. If you’re going to label something, it may as well be accurate.

I will admit that some of the things MLB players did during this time disgusts me. It’s not so much the fact that they cheated, but that they were so smug and arrogant that they thought they could get away with it.

So here we are with Hall of Fame ballots in our hands with blank looks on our faces. How are we supposed to vote? From this point on, how are we supposed to determine which players from this era deserve enshrinement and which deserve to be left outside with their noses pressed against the windows of the Hall of Fame?

In my opinion the players have to be taken on a case by case basis.

It is patently unfair to just take the players from the PED Era and lump them all together in one uniform group. There are some players that have never been linked to a PED, but have had guilt projected upon them nonetheless. I’m in favor of protecting them because they are being hunted as well.

I am going to look at not only PED users, but also those who have been unfairly targeted by some as being guilty by association.

I know this is a passionate subject for many, but passion should not suspend a person’s rationality. Unfortunately for many, it does.

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On Wednesday afternoon, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced the induction of Bert Blyleven (among others) after a 14-year wait.  Blyleven’s election comes on the heels of the elections of Jim Rice (class of ’09) and Andre “Hawk” Dawson (’10) after comparably long waits.  With these three men all in, we can now turn our sights to other players who have spent many years (five or more for the sake of this article) on the ballot and are still waiting for the all-important call from Cooperstown.  I took each player who will be on their fifth ballot or late in 2012.  Players are ordered not by merit, but by time on the ballot to avoid any claims of favoritism.

Dale Murphy: 1977-1993 (14th Ballot in 2012): .265 BA, 398 HR, 1,266 RBIs, 1982 and ’83 NL MVP, 7-time All-Star, 5 Gold Gloves, 4 Silver Sluggers (12.6 percent in 2011)

With the exception of his batting average, Dale Murphy’s numbers compare quite favorably to Hall of Famer Jim Rice.  Even if they don’t put him in the Hall, they certainly should garner better than 12.6 percent over the ballots cast.  Two MVPs for Murphy against one for Rice, seven All-Stars vs eight, four Silver Sluggers vs two, five Gold Gloves vs none.  Murphy hit 16 more home runs and drove in 200 less RBIs in two more seasons.  When comparing Murphy to Jim Rice, one must ask, are too few people voting for Murphy, or did too many vote for Rice?

Murphy dominated from 1982 through ’87, hitting .289 and averaging 36 HR and 105 RBIs.  He made the All-Star game each year and won both of his MVPs along with all of his Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers in that period.  After 1987, Murphy was unable to match that type of success again.  He hit over .250 only once (1991 with the Phillies) and never again drove in over 90 runners.

The .265 career BA and short window of dominance are the biggest marks against Murphy. 

Jack Morris: 1977-1994 (13th Ballot in 2012): 254 W, 3.90 ERA, 2,478 K, 5-time All-Star (53.5 percent in 2011)

Morris was the winningest pitcher of the 1980s with 162 victories.  The pitchers that led every previous decade in wins have all reached the hallowed hall of Cooperstown.  The 1990s’ leader Greg Maddux is a sure-fire first ballot Hall of Famer as well.  Morris won four World Series rings with the Tigers (1984), Twins (’91) and Blue Jays (’92 and ’93).  His gutty ten-inning performance in game seven of the ’91 World Series is the accomplishment that is most closely associated with Morris.  Now that Bert Byleven (a player with significantly better stats across the board) has been inducted, the debate can begin in earnest over Morris.

The two biggest marks against Morris are his 3.90 career ERA and lack of a Cy Young Award.  Will that be enough to hold him out?  Only time will tell.  It is worth noting that of the players on this list, Morris was the only one to receive better than 50-percent of the vote in 2011.

Don Mattingly: 1982-1995 (12th Ballot in 2012): .307 BA, 222 HR, 1,099 RBI, 1985 MVP, 6-time All-Star, 9 Gold Gloves, 3 Silver Sluggers (13.6 percent in 2011)

“Donnie Baseball” had one of the most dominant six-year periods of any player in that era.  From 1982-1989, Mattingly hit .327 and averaged 27 HR and 114 RBIs per season.  In that period, Mattingly won his MVP, made all six of his all-star appearances, and collected five Gold Gloves and three Silver Sluggers.

Unfortunately for Mattingly and his supporters, back problems severely shortened the prime of his career.  After the ’89 season, Mattingly would never again reach 20 HR or 90 RBIs in a season.  Only once (’94) did he manage to hit over .300.  I fear that his lack of longevity will be enough to keep him out of Cooperstown.

Allen Trammell: 1977-1996 (11th Ballot in 2012): .285 BA, 185 HR, 1,003 RBIs, 1,231 R, 236 SB, 6-time All-Star, 4 Gold Gloves, 3 Silver Sluggers (24.3 percent in 2011)

Allen Trammell was one of the key contributors to the Tigers during their run in the 1980s.  Playing shortstop in an era dominated by Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith and future Hall of Famer (in my book at least) Barry Larkin led many to overlook the accomplishments of Trammell in Detroit.  Trammell was a sure-handed defender playing the toughest position on the field.

However, Trammell was a streaky hitter.  There were a handful of seasons when he would hit well over .300 before suddenly slipping back to an average in the .270s or worse the next year.  For his career, Trammell struck out more than he walked.  Though a solid fielder, he lacked the flashy defensive abilities that defined the careers of Smith and (potential HOFer) Omar Vizquel.

Lee Smith: 1980-1997 (10th Ballot in 2012): 71 W, 3.03 ERA, 478 S, 1,251 K, 7-time All-Star (45.3% in 2011)

For many years, relievers had a difficult time getting votes for the Hall.  Recently, this trend has begun to shift.  Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter were both elected after long waits and current closers Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera are looking like first-ballot HOFers.  At the time of his retirement, Lee Smith had the career lead in saves by over 100 on Dennis Eckersley.  Smith was the first pitcher to collect saves in such a large quantity.

Working against Smith is his 3.03 ERA (high for a Hall of Fame-caliber reliever) and low strikeout totals compared to his competition.  Many have made the argument that Smith was nothing more than a “compiler” of statistics over his 18-year career.

Mark McGwire: 1986-2001 (6th Ballot in 2012): .263 BA, 583 HR, 1,414 RBIs, 1987 AL ROY, 12-time All-Star, 1 Gold Glove, 3 Silver Sluggers (19.8 percent in 2011)

Mark McGwire was one of the most prolific homerun hitters in the history of the game.  “Big Mac” averaged 36 HR per season (that number jumps to 39 if you don’t include the 18 games he played in 1986) including injury-riddled 1993 and ’94 when he combined for 18 HR.

Given recent revelations, much of McGwire’s power numbers have come in to question.  Without his HRs, McGwire doesn’t have much to stand on.  He was a below-average defender at the position widely considered to be the easiest position on the field.  He hit .263 for his career and his RBI totals are quite low when you consider how many homeruns he hit (for the sake of comparison, Dave Winfield drove in 400 more runs while hitting 100 less homers).

Tim Raines: 1979-2002 (5th Ballot): .294 BA, 170 HR, 980 RBIs, 2,605 H, 808 SB, 7-time All-Star, 1 Silver Slugger (37.5% in 2011)

The supporters of Tim Raines often refer to him as the Rickey Henderson of the National League.  On the surface, that makes a lot of sense.  Both were leadoff men who hit for a similar average, stole a bunch of bases, and played LF instead of CF.

However, there is only one stat in which Henderson doesn’t blow Raines away.  Raines hit 15 points better than Henderson.  Other than that, Henderson has over 500 more steals, over 400 more hits, over 100 more homers, and 135 more RBIs.

Now that you have some information on the seven player who will be on the ballot for the fifth time or more in 2012, which ones do you think deserve to be elected?  Which ones will be elected?  I look forward to reading and responding to your comments on this subject.

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Robert Alomar and Bert Byleven have been elected to Cooperstown this year. Both men narrowly missed out on being elected last season.

Alomar spent time with seven different teams during his Hall of Fame career. It is amazing to that a player of his caliber bounced around so often and never spent more than five seasons with one team. Alomar was a 12-time All-Star and won 10 Gold Gloves as a second baseman. In addition, he also won four Silver Sluggers and was the 1992 ALCS MVP, as well as the 1998 All-Star Game MVP.

Alomar received 90 percent of the writer’s votes this year. It should also be interesting to see what cap he will be wearing on his Hall of Fame plaque.

Byleven will also be enshrined in the Hall of Fame this year. Byleven had a lengthy 22 year career in which he played for five teams. He did spent half of his career with the Minnesota Twins. Byleven won 287 games in his career and also ranks fifth on the all-time strikeouts list with 3,701. He was selected for two All-Star Games during his career.

Byleven received 79.7 percent of the votes this year after narrowly missing out and receiving 74.2 percent last year.  It has been argued that the advent of sabermetrics greatly helped Byleven’s Hall of Fame chances. This certainly makes sense as he lacks some of the awards and milestones (such as 300 wins), that many Hall of Fame pitchers have. Byleven actually has the 13th highest WAR for pitchers in MLB history, which certainly helped his case.

There were only two other players who received more than 50 percent of the writers’ votes. Barry Larkin received 62.1 percent of the votes and is someone to keep an eye on in next year’s voting. Jack Morris received 53.5 percent of the votes, which is only slightly more than the 52.3 percent he received last year.

The other story of the voting is tied to players who have been involved with steroids.

Mark McGwire, despite his outstanding career and the fact that he at one point held the single season home run record, was only able to garner 19.1 percent of the votes. Additionally, McGwire’s 583 home runs rank as 10th all-time and he was a 12-time All-Star. McGwire publicly admitted this year that he took steroids.

Rafael Palmeiro was only able to get 11.0 percent of the writers’ votes. Palmeiro is 12th on the all-time home run list with 569 homers. He is also a four-time All-Star. Palmeiro went in front of a congressional committee and testified that he had never used steroids. Just months later, Palmeiro was suspended for violating the MLB’s steroid policy.

Jeff Bagwell was able to get 41.7 percent of the writers’ votes. There is a lot of speculation going around that Bagwell took steroids, but it has never been proven. Bagwell is a four-time All-Star and is also one of the few players with at least 400 home runs and 200 stolen bases.

It is clear that the baseball writers have taken a strong stance on steroid users. McGwire and Palmeiro, both who have been proven to have used steroids, struggled to get votes. Bagwell, who was never physically linked to steroids, was able to get a good percentage of votes for his first year on the ballot. It should be interested to see if this trend continues in the future and how it affects the voting on players such as Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. 

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This year’s hall of fame ballot may be underwhelming. The ballot doesn’t have any new surefire candidates. There is no one player people have been waiting to see elected. We’re caught between the Cal Ripkens and Tony Gwynn ceremony and the impending honoring of Frank Thomas and Greg Maddux. Who is going to get a plaque in the meantime.

I started following baseball in the mid nineties with only a faint understanding of what baseball statistics meant and no conception of intangibles or player value. A player was good if someone (most often my father) told me he was good. Even until recent years, I was no good at understanding players. I knew a .300 batting average was good. I knew a sub-3.00 ERA was good. I didn’t know that there was more to hitting and pitching. I didn’t know defense really mattered. I didn’t know anything and I didn’t have to. If you were any good you were wearing pinstripes and winning.

Now many of the players I grew up watching, but not really knowing, are appearing on the ballot and many are disappearing almost immediately. I don’t doubt that trend continues. The hall means more than being “good.” I’ve heard so many times before that you had to be “great” to be in the hall. But how great? Where is the line? Last year we saw Andre Dawson receive one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a human being. Did he deserve it? Did he deserve it more than anyone else that year? I am on the fence.

Those are the sort of questions I’m going to struggle with here. And, pretending that my opinion matters, I’ll give my votes for each of these players. I’m going to try to be fair, but I’m not going to try to predict anything.

Starting with guys who have spent the longest time on the ballot…

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