Jack Curry: McGwire's Path Could Foreshadow Bonds's

JACK CURRY
The New York Times
Published: July 23, 2006

Barry Bonds is the second-most-prolific home run hitter, but his eventual place in baseball history will be difficult to predict. How much will he be remembered for hitting more than 700 homers and how much will he be remembered for how he might have accumulated some of them?

Mark McGwire’s legacy as a power hitter may be more confusing. While Bonds is playing for the San Francisco Giants and being investigated by federal prosecutors in connection with a steroid distribution case, McGwire is retired and out of the public glare that surrounds Bonds.

But in one critical way, a referendum on McGwire’s career and the suspicions that he used performance-enhancing drugs could actually come before Bonds’s actions are judged by the legal system. On Dec. 1, McGwire’s name will be on the Hall of Fame ballot that is mailed to about 575 voters.

Because the three dozen or so players on the ballot will be listed alphabetically, McGwire will be positioned somewhere between Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr., two iconic players who are certain to be elected on their first ballot.

McGwire, who hit 583 homers in his career and who briefly held the single-season home run record before Bonds eclipsed it, was once considered a strong candidate to join Gwynn and Ripken in his first try for Cooperstown. Not anymore.

In a poll of 50 writers who are eligible to vote for the Hall as 10-year members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, only eight said they would vote for McGwire, a former first baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Oakland Athletics. Twenty-six said they would not vote for McGwire and the other 16 were undecided. A player needs 75 percent of the votes for induction.

Although the poll was limited to a fraction of the writers who will vote, it could be an ominous sign for McGwire. If this sample is remotely emblematic of how the remaining voters feel, McGwire’s chances of being elected could be flimsy.

Most of the voters who said they would not check the box beside McGwire’s name said they were influenced by the suspicion that he used steroids. When McGwire was questioned during a Congressional hearing investigating steroids in March 2005, he refused to talk about his possible involvement.

“I’m not here to discuss the past,” McGwire said over and over.

Several writers cited McGwire’s silence in Washington as a tacit admission that he used steroids. Others noted that the guidelines for rating a player for the Hall of Fame include his record, playing ability, contributions to a team, integrity, sportsmanship and character.

“This might sound overly simplistic, but if McGwire did not feel the need to defend his career while appearing before Congress, why should I certify his career with a Hall vote?” Gerry Fraley of The Dallas Morning News said.

Steve Buckley of The Boston Herald said the refusal to talk about steroids would cause him not to vote for McGwire. “Whenever someone asks me to expand on my answer, I simply say, ‘I’m not here to talk about the past,’ ” he said.

Jeff Blair of The Toronto Globe and Mail, who said he would vote for McGwire, said: “Please spare me the drivel about McGwire’s performance before Congress. Seems to me that stonewalling congressmen is an accepted fact of life on Capitol Hill.”

Since McGwire’s uncomfortable and very public appearance 16 months ago, he has rarely been spotted at public events.

“Now he’s become the Howard Hughes of baseball,” said Tom Haudricourt of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Pete Rose, who admitted to betting on baseball, has never been included on a ballot; McGwire, who has not admitted to using steroids, will be on the ballot. While McGwire was playing, steroids were not banned from baseball and there was no drug-testing policy. And McGwire almost certainly faced pitchers who used steroids.

McGwire’s inclusion on the ballot, Patrick Reusse of The Minneapolis Star Tribune said, indicates that the commissioner’s office made no moral judgment on McGwire’s candidacy.
“What I’m saying right now is I’ll hold my nose and vote for him,” Reusse said.

A handful of voters said they would simply judge McGwire on what he did on the field, not what he might have done off it.

“The steroids won’t enter into it,” said Ray Ratto of The San Francisco Chronicle. “The Hall of Fame isn’t a church. It’s the history of baseball, good and bad.”

Jack O’Connell, the secretary-treasurer of the Baseball Writers’ Association and the man who handles the ballots, said that he never considered McGwire “a first-ballot shoo-in.” He said Harmon Killebrew, who had 573 homers during an era in which it was tougher to hit home runs, did not gain admittance to the Hall until his fourth year of eligibility. Ratto and O’Connell said they were undecided about McGwire.

Other voters also questioned whether McGwire, regardless of steroids, belonged in the Hall. Joe Posnanski of The Kansas City Star was one of many voters who compared McGwire with Dave Kingman, the one-dimensional, swing-for-the-fences hitter who finished with 442 homers.

Posnanski detailed the remarkable similarity between McGwire’s and Kingman’s statistics before they turned 32. McGwire had 277 homers and a .252 average in fewer than 4,000 at-bats; Kingman had 270 and a .243 average in fewer than 4,000 at-bats. But McGwire had 306 homers in his next 2,528 at-bats.

“He was closer to Kingman than Cooperstown,” before his incredible power surge, said Posnanski, who said he was leaning toward not voting for McGwire.

Because Gwynn, of the San Diego Padres, and Ripken, of the Baltimore Orioles, basically had careers free of controversy, Bernie Miklasz of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and others said it would be unfair to them to have McGwire sharing the same stage on their anticipated enshrinement day. Miklasz said he was undecided about McGwire, although inclined not to vote for him.

The ballots that will judge the steroid era for the first time must be returned by Dec. 31; the results will be announced in January. Marc Topkin of The St. Petersburg Times said it was unfortunate that writers would be forced “to play chemist, physician, ethicist and modern historian” in deciding the legacy of players who may or may not have used steroids.

“Oh for the simple days,” Topkin said, “of whether 500 homers got you in or not.”