Category Archives: baseball

January 9, 2013 · 8:33 pm

Quick Thoughts: Bonds, Clemens, and MLB Hall of Fame

I love baseball, but I am not a baseball stat-head. I can’t recount how many bases someone stole or how much shutout innings someone pitched. I don’t go in for all those fine-grained analyses over who should and should not get into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

With that caveat, I think it is silly that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were not voted into the Hall of Fame today. Yes they both cheated; they used substances that were prohibited by their sport. Their legacies are forever tarnished by this, and rightfully so. But both Bonds and Clemens were two of the greatest baseball players ever—PEDs or not. And given the alleged pervasiveness of PED usage in their era, one might argue that their dominance was even more impressive.

Moreover, there is little doubt that PED users and cheaters of other kinds are already in the Hall—having played in a time when knowledge of such things was harder to come by or just ignored. No one, as far as I know, has called for a purge of all cheaters and scoundrels already in the Hall of Fame (Let’s not!)

The voters who refused to vote for Bonds and Clemens seem to be trying to undo history or pretend like it didn’t happen. But it did happen. These men played the game. They dominated. How does one tell the history of baseball in the late 20th/early 21st century without talking about Bonds and Clemens? As ESPN baseball writer Jayson Stark puts it: “Do we really want a Hall of Fame that basically tries to pretend that none of those men ever played baseball? That none of that happened? Or that none of that should have happened?”

Another view of why the voters voted the way they did is that the voters were taking out their frustration and anger at the whole so-called Steroids Era by punishing these men. But this strikes me as largely misplaced. It is not the voters’ role to dole out justice for such rule-violations. That role belonged to the league, owners, and players. They all failed in that regard, but that does not license the baseball writers to take it up.

I am of the camp that thinks we ought to put the best, most dominant players of their respective eras in the Hall and where appropriate note the admitted, alleged, or suspected PED use on plaques/signs by the players’ bust. Anything else seems to be either hypocrisy or evasion.

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Filed under baseball, PEDs

October 3, 2012 · 2:00 am

Miguel Cabrera and the Triple Crown

Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers 3rd baseman, is closing in on the first Triple Crown in baseball in 45 years. The last one was in 1967 with Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox. (The Triple Crown signifies a hitter that finishes the season leading in the statistical categories of batting average, home runs, and runs batted in).

It is a very cool statistical achievement, in part, because of the length of time since it has been accomplished. But it is also cool because it captures what it means to be a good overall hitter. You hit home runs (power), you hit consistently (average), and you bring runs in (RBI).

What is significant about Cabrera is that the Tigers have clinched their division and Cabrera could sit these two games and secure the Triple Crown without taking another bat this regular season. Rookie Mike Trout is nipping at his heals for the batting average, and Josh Hamilton is one home run behind him. So, in fact, he might need to play to secure the crown. Nevertheless, Cabrera is taking the risk and playing. He is putting his reputation, his chance at baseball immortality, on the line by playing these two games. That is the honorable and classy thing to do.

I think the following selections from Heather Reid’s “Socrates at the Ballpark,” (from Baseball and Philosophy) enlightens us to why:

“Baseball, and sports in general, require a similar admission of fallibility. To enter into competition is to risk one’s public reputation and even one’s own self-conception…But to compete is to risk failure. All you can do is offer your best performance and hope it survives exposure to competition…Athletes always risk failure, but this constant risk, this admission of fallibility creates the desire to learn, to train, to improve…Winning is only possible if you are able to risk losing…” (279).

Cabrera has been challenging and proving himself all season. He needs to do that for two more games. He might fail and lose out on the Triple Crown. But if he risks it, and wins, it will be all the more meaningful for him and for fans.

(As a Red Sox fan, I would be remiss in failing to remind readers that in 1941, Ted Williams had .400 batting average heading into the last two games (a double-header) of the season. Williams chose to play in both games, risking his record breaking average. Williams ending with a .405 average.)

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Filed under Achievement, baseball, Triple Crown