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Steroids and the Hall of Fame

Posted by Eno Sarris Categories: Editorials

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Apparently, Alex Rodriguez did some steroids back when his sport had a “Don’t Ask - Don’t Tell” policy about performance enhancing drugs. In retrospect, it’s hardly surprising that the world’s most competitive baseball players did something that was not being tested for in an effort to get ahead. Imagine how angry you would be if you were one of the best players in the game watching all the rest of the guys pad their stats and their wallets at your expense.

But this is more than being a steroid user apologist. What they did was illegal and wrong, in the end. How do we evaluate them against each other when it’s time to decide on the Hall of Fame? The numbers are almost certainly not clean on either side of the ball, so what sort of standard should we use in our deliberations of their possible drug effects on numbers around the leagues?

It’s not as simple as just taking 10% off the top. It would be nice to say that, in an effort to compare players of their own era, we’d come up with new benchmarks. Instead of 500 homers, we may have to put automatic entrance at 600 homers. We’d call it the Mark McGwire rule for good measure. But then what do we do about Rafael Palmeiro? He had multiple MVPs, 3000 hits, and 569 home runs… and one failed test after the program was in place. So our rubric needs some work, eh?

Click to continue reading Steroids and the Hall of Fame

Read More | Sports Illustrated

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Mike Mussina, Future Hall of Famer, Retires

Posted by Eno Sarris Categories: New York Yankees, Editorials

That's a Hall of Famer.

Mike Mussina decided to retire today, and in the Northeast, there’s no doubt. He’s a future Hall of Famer.

But all of this because he finally won 20 games? After two decades of consistent elite performance, why did a random number make so much difference? Well, the answer of course is that voters and much of the general public are a little too conscious of the ‘counting’ stats. How many home runs did he have? How many wins? Case closed.

Mussina has 270 wins in his 18 year career, an average of 15 wins per season. He has a career 3.68 ERA and 1.19 WHIP.  He’s only finished in the top three for the Cy Young once. So, no real hardware, no eye-popping statistics, no Hall of Fame - or so goes the story. But, let’s take a deeper look.

Click to continue reading Mike Mussina, Future Hall of Famer, Retires

Read More | Fox Sports

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