This column in a Bay Area site is a composition by Dave Newhouse, a member of the Baseball Writers of Association of America who HAD a Hall of Fame vote. He recently redacted himself from that vote, based on the ethical issues of anabolic use in the sport.
Electing members to Cooperstown, my responsibility for better than 20 years, has meant more to me than electing presidents. I've been involved with baseball longer, thus I felt my Hall of Fame vote made more of a difference.
It doesn't any more because I no longer recognize the game I grew up with, idolizing Stan Musial and remembering significant moments — Jackie Robinson's educating baseball about civil rights, and Babe Ruth's dying.
Baseball was cleaner back then, with a sense of purity that has been lost over these past two decades with the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and the arrival of steroids.
Both of these factors tainted the game, and I can't get them out of my head, or forgive the damage they've done. However, it's steroids and BALCO, first and foremost, that made me, reluctantly, turn in my BBWAAfrom Sports 1
card.
For I cannot in good conscience vote potential members into Cooperstown not knowing if they've cheated. If it were in my power, and if I had proof that someone cheated, I would kick him out of the game on first offense and preclude him from ever entering Cooperstown.
To some of you, this will sound extreme, but the only way to clean up the game is to sweep away its dirt.
Steroids give cheaters a decided advantage, from pumping up their bodies to faster recovery time from fatigue to unfairly inflated records. And baseball's records matter the most.
But because I don't have that power, the last thing I want on my conscience is that I might possibly vote a cheater into that prestigious shrine located in a quaint, tiny upstate New York hamlet.
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