Wonderfully ironic that America's favourite sport is innately socialist. Damn the liberal player movement of MLB's capitalism. Well, capitalism with an asterisk. Let's just ignore the antitrust exemption.

As for Fernando Rodney, ugh. I don't care for his on-field antics and would find it near impossible to root for him. Maybe that's just my age showing.

All things considered (given it is the BBWAA), Griffey did well. I believe his vote percentage was the highest in history. Should he have been a unanimous choice? Of course, but then so should have many, many who went before.

Meh, the 3 who didn't vote for him could have had any number of (dumb) reasons.

7) No one gets my vote year one as if Ruth and Aaron (or whoever their favorite is) didn't get 100%, no one does on my watch.

It's probably this one. I envision some crusty old guy who still yearns for the days of Joe DiMaggio, and who thinks that Junior disrespected the game because he turned his baseball cap backwards every now and again. And who hasn't had any fun of any kind since 1958.

I have a totally unfounded suspicion that the voters who didn't vote for The Kid are the ones who want to make sure that nobody gets voted in unanimously until Derek Jeter is eligible.

Gaah. Blaaargh. Ick. Ugh. Noooo! I so hope you're wrong, but I am afraid you might be right. Jeter is just the sort of player that appeals to a crusty old sportswriter (see above).

This reminds me of my favourite hobby horse: Derek Jeter and Roberto Alomar are basically the same player. Here's their career averages:

Jeter: .310 BA, .377 OBP, .440 SLG, .817 OPS
Alomar: .300 BA, .371 OBP, .443 SLG, .814 OPS

Both were considered very smart players. Jeter was a shortstop with below-average range for much of his career; Alomar was a second baseman with good range. Jeter lasted a bit longer, so he ranks one click ahead, but they're basically the same guy.

Richard SS, not sure if you were on the box back in the day when Bonds couldn't get a FA offer, but the discussion around race was an interesting one at the time. A lot of people disagreed that it was a factor in his unemployment (unless jerk is a race) - but I'm with you, I think he was scapegoated a bit as an intense black man.

If it were anybody other than Bonds, I might agree that race might have been a factor. But Bonds was well known for having used PEDs and for being, um, somewhat difficult to deal with. When you factor in his likely salary expectation and his age, I can easily see why no team would want him.

If it were anybody other than Bonds, I might agree that race might have been a factor. But Bonds was well known for having used PEDs and for being, um, somewhat difficult to deal with. When you factor in his likely salary expectation and his age, I can easily see why no team would want him.

IIRC, Bonds said he would happily play for the MLB minimum or $1M (forget which) AND donate 100% of the money to charity, just to keep playing. Still no takers. For a guy who had 17 straight years of OPS+ of 156 or better. Including OPS+ of 169 the year before.

Carlos Delgado only hit better than 169 ONCE - in 2000 at 181. So imagine Carlos Delgado in his prime (Bonds wasn't the fastest guy anymore), offering play for the MLB minimum. And no one being interested. Not necessarily race related, but definitely some kind of politicking going on...

Amazing that some purported Blue Jay 'fans' are so down with Cheat and Lie that they'll smear Roy Halladay to support the cheats.

Well said, ComebyDeanChance (as usual).

I just think Bonds was picked to be the PED scapegoat.

Part of it, I think, was that Bonds was putting up numbers that were so good as to be ludicrous. A .609 on-base percentage? 73 home runs? A 1.422 OPS at the age of 39? What is this - wiffleball?

Also, he had spent so much time working out and taking PEDs that he looked like a cyborg. Had nothing been done, all other batters would have turned into cyborgs too (or tried to) and baseball would have become a perpetual home run derby. Ugh.

I don't doubt that some form of PED use still goes on; players will always use whatever advantages they can get away with, whether it be "greenies", multiple doses of caffeinated beverages, or whatever else is available. (Buck O'Neil once said, if I recall correctly, that the only reason why Negro League players didn't use steroids was because they didn't have them.) But at least today's game has a balance between pitching, hitting, and fielding.

Clemens is the best pitcher in modern baseball history. Bonds is the second best hitter. I find it fun to appreciate their careers, no matter what may have fueled them.

What I find troubling is that I wonder what kind of careers these players would have had if they had not used. How much help do PEDs provide, anyway? Can they take an ordinary player whose career would have stalled out at class AA and transform him into a superstar? Or is it just a question of adding a little bit of help?

The sad part is that Bonds probably would have been a Hall of Famer if he had not bothered using. His early career numbers with Pittsburgh were pretty much good enough on their own, if he had managed any kind of longevity. I'm not so sure about Clemens - without chemical help, his career might have ended at about the time he became a Blue Jay.

The HOF is moralizing itself into irrelevance by not including Bonds and Clemens.

The HOF is doing what it has always done: it sees itself as the moral guardian of baseball and its myths. Recall that it is based in Cooperstown because it buys into the myth that Abner Doubleday invented the game.

That's why I've never really cared that much who goes into the HOF and who doesn't - it's an artificial construct that doesn't really have much to do with the history of baseball as it actually happened. The real history of baseball includes spitballs, the old Orioles tugging on baserunners' belts as they tried to score, gamblers trying to fix games, managers attempting to steal signs through the scoreboard, and so on and so on. I don't really care about the sanitized history as it appears on plaques. That's just there to give people a reason to travel to upstate New York and spend their tourist dollars.

Having said that: I find it difficult to exclude known PED users from the HOF because I don't think that the various investigations caught all of the users. Leaving Clemens out while letting Player X in, only because Player X wasn't caught, doesn't seem fair to me.

This and the business of who is an all-star. Welcome to groundhog day.

Griffey, unfortunately, aged normally, if not rapidly robbing fans of potentially the greatest career in history while Bonds decided to take the easy way out- resulting in arguably the greatest career in history but with an asterisk bigger than his hat size.

Which reminds me of this article from The Onion: Nation To Ken Griffey Jr.: 'We Wish It Were You Hitting 756 Home Runs'