Wow, those were some exciting NFL playoff games this past weekend! I think that the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Buffalo Bills game was the biggest barnburner in history, with 25 points scored in the last two minutes and the lead changing numerous times.
Holy smokes!
Those two young quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, are going to set a lot of records before they are done: they’ll probably both be in the NFL Hall of Fame someday.
Of course, no matter what they do (?) their careers will never eclipse that of the acknowledged “Greatest of All Time” quarterback Tom Brady. The guy is working on two hands full of Super Bowl rings and owns virtually every record that a quarterback is eligible for. The owners, TV commentators, and players all refer to him as the G.O.A.T….and he’s still playing at age 44…establishing records that will never be approached.
When Brady is through, they could build an entire wing onto the Football Hall of Fame building in Canton, Ohio just to display his records and memorabilia.
Ironically, this week will see the announcement of baseball players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the G.O.A.T., Barry Bonds, will be denied entry for the tenth year in a row.
Say what?!
Mr. Bonds played during the so-called Steroid Era (1990’s and early 2000’s) when many players were using anabolic steroids to improve performance. The use of performance enhancing drugs was not new to Major League Baseball, as methamphetamines (“greenies”) pills were commonly dispensed in MLB locker rooms after WWII to improve alertness, and steroid use among players began as early as the 1970’s. MLB owners, as well as the Commissioner of Baseball, knew of such things and looked the other way, particularly after the disastrous 1994 strike which wiped out 948 games and threatened the so-called “National Pastime”.
At that time, with fans disgusted at management/player greed, MLB owners were eager for anything that would jumpstart their downward spiraling league. Who knows how many players starting using steroids seriously at that time? It had to have been a pretty common practice, because previous “banjo hitters” starting swatting baseballs into the stands with regularity, and the real good ones (like Bonds, McGuire, Sosa, etc.) began to re-write the record books. This went on for many years, to fans, owners’, and the MLB Commissioner’s Office delight, before the league finally came up with PED testing rules in 2003.
The “War on Drugs”, you know.
Then, all of the sudden, the PED users (or at least the suspected ones) became pariahs to MLB management, the Press, and even Congressional representatives looking for publicity. The heroes who saved MLB baseball after the strike were now labeled…cheaters.
How convenient, now that MLB’s finances were back on a sound footing.
Barry Bonds is the poster child of the so-called Steroid Era. During his career, he won seven Most Valuable Player awards, five of which were awarded to him before MLB got serious about PED use in 2003. The guy played 21 years in the Big Leagues and hit 762 home runs, of which 623 were hit before 2003, by which time he was 38 years old.
The guy was Rookie of the Year in his first season and Most Valuable Player in his fourth season: he was a stud from the beginning. Mr. Bonds was never penalized by MLB for steroid use during his career and never failed a PED drug test by MLB.
The Baseball Writers Association of America, which confers “Most Valuable Player” awards, consists of sports journalists who are intimately involved with the game, hang out with players in the locker rooms, and presumably love the integrity of the game. It is preposterous to think that these journalists weren’t aware of rampant “greenie” and “PED” usage by players over the many decades and knew that such practices were common among most players. After all, those athletes had to compete against each other on an equal footing.
And, so, in the so-called Steroid Era, Barry Bonds was the best player…hands down…when MLB was being played in that manner (i.e. “juiced”), something that was condoned by team owners and the Commissioner’s Office. And the fans loved all of those muscle-bound freaks clubbing home runs!
Why shouldn’t the G.O.A.T. be in baseball’s Hall of Fame? The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), which canonized the guy during his career, vote on the nominees. Should be a slam dunk, right?
Nope.
I think some guilt is involved. Those supposedly professional BBWAA journalists looked the other way when PEDs were rampant in MLB and now want to pretend that they weren’t complicit in the Steroid Era kerfuffle. “Bonds fooled us!” seems to be the excuse for today’s righteous indignity. “He cheated!!”, seems to be the mantra, conveniently forgetting that they break the speed limit each day on the way to work and that millionaires don’t pay their share of taxes. Like those cheaters, Bonds was never caught, so…what’s he guilty of? And, besides, PED wasn’t against the rules until late in his career.
Indignant MLB stars of yesteryear, many safely enshrined in the Hall of Fame, look down their noses at Barry Bonds, pretending that his alleged “cheating” is more serious than their gameday use of methamphetamines back in the day. Of course, those PEDs weren’t against the rules at that time. Who know how many home runs Mickey Mantle would have hit without his “greenies”?
Pete Rose, another great MLB performer, also has been denied entry to the Hall of Fame, despite holding the record for the most hits in a Major League career. His sin? He was caught betting on MLB games after his playing career. Say what?!
Isn’t a Hall of Fame supposed to honor the athletic achievements the player accomplished out on the field, competing against athletes benefitting from the technologies of the time, and playing the game as it was played under those rules at the time?
The whole MLB Hall of Fame fiasco is tantamount to “cancel culture”: politics has entered the arena in the worst way. Grown adults are pretending that stuff didn’t go on…when they know it did, similar to the “stolen election” of 2020.
If we change the way that we view accomplishments, based upon today’s world and what we know now, then a great many players who are in Hall of Fames shouldn’t be there.
If we were to remove all of the players who didn’t have to play night baseball (prior to 1935), who didn’t have to play against Black players (prior to 1947), who benefitted from PEDs (1945 onward), and threw illegal spitballs and used corked bats (since the beginning of MLB), then the Major League Baseball shrine at Cooperstown would be an empty building. Ty Cobb, one of the original inductees, was an avowed racist; should he be in the Hall?
Should all of the players on the Houston Astros, who benefitted from “sign stealing” in 2017, the year that the Astros won the World Series, be denied consideration for future Hall of Fame induction because their hitting stats were improved…by knowing what pitch was coming? Interestingly, although this was an egregious violation of baseball rules, MLB did not rescind the Astros’ World Series title, sending the message that cheating was okay…even at the highest level.
Go figure.
The Football Hall of Fame honors a few individuals who, off the field, left much to be desired. Paul Hornung bet on games and was suspended by the NFL. O.J. Simpson murdered his wife and her friend, and Ray Lewis plea-bargained his way out of a murder conviction. (“So what, those guys could play!”)
If Hall of Fame voters in any sport are to consider a player’s “character” in the voting, no matter how dominant a competitor he was, it would seem a very slippery slope, considering that societal values change over time. It seems that younger generations than my own (I’m mid-70’s now) feel that virtually any conduct is legal, as long as you don’t get caught. It wasn’t that way when I was growing up, that’s for sure.
Let’s just imagine that it’s 2027, quarterback Tom Brady has been retired from the NFL for five years and is eligible for induction into the Football Hall of Fame. Let’s also pretend that Mr. Brady has undergone a messy divorce during that time, has been linked to some shady business dealings, or is maybe suspected of being a collector of child porn during his retirement years.
Should the Greatest Player of All Time be denied entry to the Football Hall of Fame because he’s been accused of being a creep in private life? Don’t laugh: a lot of sports writers, from cities whose teams were frustrated by Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, hate the guy. They’d probably vote against him just for spite. And now, they’d have an excuse.
Politics is an ugly sport.