I was just sifting through some old issues of Baseball Digest earlier today, when I came across an article about the huge class of “sure-thing” Hall of Famers playing in the late 1990’s. The issue was dated July 1999, making it just 10 years old. I looked through some of those names and found Cal Ripken Jr. to be among the few that stood the test of time. Others from that article that are in the Hall of Fame or are likely to get inducted are Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, Derek Jeter, Craig Biggio, Barry Larkin, and Frank Thomas. Those that won’t be getting in include Andruw Jones, Nomar Garciaparra, Juan Gonzalez, Albert Belle, Jose Canseco and Scott Rolen. That’s actually skipping over a few names.
It seems that nearly half of the people in this future Hall of Fame group have the career stats to qualify, but probably will never get into the museum in Cooperstown without a ticket because they were involved with steroids or cheated the game by taking performance enhancing drugs. They include Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Roger Clemens. I think Bonds and Clemens will be a true test for the baseball writers who vote players into the hall. I know many see Bonds as no different than McGwire and won’t vote for him. For some reason I don’t sense the same resentment towards Clemens. If I’m fortunate to have any baseball writers reading my measly little Orioles blog I’d like to give them a warning: if you vote in Clemens, you MUST vote in Bonds as well. To do otherwise would be an embarrassment to both the writers and the Hall of Fame and all of its members. The cries of racism would not be as quite as they are now.
I wonder how many “sure-thing” Hall of Famers playing today won’t even garner 25% of the vote when they become eligible (75% is needed for induction). Evan Longoria? Ryan Howard? We’ll just have to wait and see.
