Ban Them? No, Reward Them! (Why Rose, McGwire, Sosa, & Bonds should be in Cooperstown)

So you think Rose, McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds deserve to be forever banished from the Baseball Hall of Fame (HOF)? Maybe you’re right. But that may just be your antiquated American way of thinking.

Let me state this in no uncertain terms—the four fellas above should be immediately inducted into Cooperstown. Not only that, but what we currently judge as the evils blocking their entrance, should instead be seen as requirements for participation in all professional sports. Allow me to explain.

First off, let it be known I’m not a fan of baseball. There are far too many games in the regular season (162), making each individual contest far too inconsequential. And it’s just too slow and boring! I much prefer European football (soccer), which has no postseason, thus increasing the importance of each game. I can respect, though, that a vastly smaller percentage of teams get into the MLB playoffs (33.33%) than the NFL (43.75%), NHL (51.61%), or NBA (53.33%). That’s one fewer strike against baseball, I suppose.

Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa created a steroid-induced spectacle in the 1998 MLB season that had even non-baseball fans like myself amazed at their feats. Their homerun race went back and forth near the end of the regular season, with McGwire ultimately crushing the single-season homerun record by 9. (Barry Bonds set the new record of 73, just 3 years later.) None of these men are in the HOF. They’ve all been accused of using, or have admitted to using steroids.

I say vote them all into the HOF anyway.

The vast majority of people have never, and will never, come close to the athleticism of these professional athletes—not even that of football’s lowly punter. This is why we watch. We desire to see the best in the world compete at the top levels of the sport. We want to be amazed by athletic performances that are truly extraordinary. In many sports, steroid use would increase the performance of these athletes we already admire, pushing our amazement of their feats to even greater heights. They make millions of dollars playing kid’s games. Let them sacrifice their bodies, and likely years of their lives, in exchange for that money and lifestyle.

In fact, instead of making a retroactive, onetime concession for a few of baseball’s greatest hitters, let’s encourage all performance enhancing drugs—in all sports—for any reason. If we legalized steroids, blood doping, etc., it would end the debate over the exclusions of a number of potential HOF inductees across many sports. We could restore Lance Armstrong’s 7 consecutive Tour de France wins. Sure, he eventually admitted to blood doping, but many professional cyclists of that era were doing it. Uno (I can never remember Lance’s name, so I call him “Uno” on account of his orchiectomy) sure did put on a superhuman performance for millions of spectators.

We can even finally allow the deserving Pete Rose into the Baseball HOF. I have no clue how many hits the man had in his career, but I know it far exceeds the dude in the second spot. Sneaky Pete admitted only to betting on games he played or managed—and only for his team to win those games. If he had bet on them to lose, then threw the games, my entire argument would be reversed. But his incentive was to win. And isn’t that the goal of professional sports. Well, okay, the true goal of professional sports is to print money for the owners and the league—the Cleveland Browns are proof you don’t need to win to rake in profits.

I’ll go as far as arguing that each player and manager should be forced to bet on their team to win each game. This would increase their desire to win, while creating a financial punishment for losing. Realistically this same incentive/disincentive could be more easily managed via fluctuating paychecks based on team performance.

European football uses “relegation and promotion” as a financial incentive to win. The worst teams at the end of each season drop down to a lower league where teams won’t make as much money. The best teams from that lower league move up to fill the absence, and thus fill their pockets. A lack of such a financial incentive in American sports—at both the team and player levels—leads to a lower quality of competition.

Imagine a child in New York is so bored that he wants to visit the Baseball HOF. When he asks why the player with the most hits in MLB history isn’t in the HOF, you have to tell him it’s because he was so confident in his team, that he bet on them to win. How silly will that kid think you are? It’s been more than 40 years; we need to forget about Pete breaking that ridiculous rule and roll the red carpet right up to the front door of Cooperstown for him.

Pete Rose’s situation reminds me of marijuana. (Quite an odd sentence.) Pot was once deemed illegal by the federal government, but is now somewhere between decriminalized and legalized. Yet we still have many people in prison for non-violent felony charges of a now “legalized” substance. Sports betting is now legal in 25 states and Washington D.C. Who knows, releasing Rose from his lifetime ban from baseball and getting him into the HOF might be just the catalyst needed to allow for a similar release of non-violent prisoners serving life-sentences on antiquated 3-strikes marijuana possession charges. That’d almost be enough for baseball to garner my respect . . . almost.

So, you still think these great hitters should forever be a footnote in MLB history, excluded from the Baseball HOF? I grew up less than 100 miles from the Pro Football HOF in Canton Ohio, so I went there numerous times in my youth. If the Baseball HOF is anything like the NFL’s, that young lad in New York isn’t missing much. Each year that passes without those players being inducted only furthers the commentary about whether or not they ever should be. In this way, they’re already permanently linked to Cooperstown. So, I guess, yeah, come to think of it . . . You’re Probably Right.

[041] April 28, 2021