HALL OF FAME DEBATE: That doesn't belong in a museum

“That belongs in a museum!”

So said Indiana Jones, and so said Leader sports editor Mark Robertson in a column last week, when he regaled our readers with a sad tale about what a travesty it was for the great Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, et al. to yet again be denied enshrinement into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Boo hoo.

While my colleague made many good points, I strongly disagree with his overall argument that baseball’s greatest honor should be extended to a group of blatant cheaters who have riddled the record book with asterisks and cheapened many of the game’s most hallowed milestones.

These individuals have already used banned substances to artificially enhance and elongate their careers, pocketing tens of millions of dollars while in the process of setting these new, disputed records. All that money sounds like a pretty good consolation prize to me. Why should they also be entitled to a spot next to the game’s enduring icons?

As countless other baseball fans have expressed, I too am disappointed that perennial Hall of Fame debates have devolved from discussions of athletic achievement to those about morality.

However, it would be deeply unfair to past baseball legends - and set a terrible precedent for future inductees - if Cooperstown were to honor those who did not earn their plaques solely through hard work and natural ability.

I agree with Mark that it is unjust for some Hall of Fame voters to automatically blacklist an entire era of players from consideration, and I hope that stars who have never been faced with steroid allegations (like Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza and, soon, Jim Thome), will be able to gain their rightful place in the museum.

I also hope that the steroid debate causes the Hall to reconsider its cruelly overdrawn punishment of Pete Rose and to give a close look to unconventional future candidates, such as defensive wizard, Omar Vizquel.

A few years ago, I attended a couple San Francisco Giants games while visiting the Bay Area. Although just a couple seasons removed from the reign of baseball’s supposed all-time home run king, Barry Bonds, you could not find one shred of evidence or memorabilia suggesting that such a “great” player had spent his heyday in a Giants uniform. The absence of anything honoring Bonds struck me as the “elephant in the stadium,” since teams would normally be giddy to flaunt an all-time great as one of their own. Bonds’ absence just reinforced how meaningless his achievements are in the public eye. Casual fans don’t act as though Bonds is the all-time home run king, so why should Cooperstown play along with the charade?

As Mark says, the “Steroid Era” is an important, albeit regrettable chapter in the game’s colorful history, and probably deserves an exhibit of its own in some corner of the museum. I grew up idolizing the high-powered Cleveland Indians offenses of the 1990s, which almost certainly included some steroid users (thanks, Manny Ramirez… and if Albert Belle put cork in his bat, he probably put something in himself, too). A couple of those guys may have been cheating, but, man, was it fun to watch!

Just be sure to keep their exhibit at least a needle’s length away from the Hall’s more deserving inductees.