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First Person To Achieve Success Strictly Due To Steroid Use Elected To Baseball Hall Of Fame


Ben Remington

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-SHTICKBALL-

In a stunning reversal of conscience, the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame will induct a member this summer who owes nearly all of his successes to the benefits of steroid use.

 

Former Commissioner Bud Selig has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, despite his time overseeing the game running rampant with performance enhancing drugs, now a topic that makes any baseball player's Hall of Fame credentials wilt like Toons dropped in “The Dip”.

 

When inducted, Selig will become the first person in the Hall to have Performance Enhancing Drugs' sticky pine tar like residue on his hands. While some may consider it a dubious honor, it may actually open the flood gates for accused players to gain entry in the future, making Selig a trailblazer of steroids in his own right, normalizing something previously frowned upon, which Selig is probably comfortable with, like an owner becoming commissioner.

 

“The Hall is a very judicious place, and we only let in the most deserving of candidates.” Hall Chairman Jane Forbes Clark said. “ We're certainly excited to have Mr. Selig in the Hall, as he oversaw a time in baseball when there was a lot of growth and money and expansion and money and home runs and money.”

 

It's important to note that Selig was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Today's Game Era Committee, an absurdly confusing renaming of the Veteran's Committee. While this varies decidedly from the voting process used by the mostly pretentious and geriatric BBWAA, it's unclear if Selig would've made the Hall of Fame under a writer's vote, seeing as how he was as popular with the baseball loving public as Canadian rock band Nickelback.

 

The BBWAA has 'abstained' for the most part for electing any player whom has ever even heard of steroids, thus becoming the ever-vigilant keepers to the Hall of Fame that no one really ever asked them to be. The same process was not in the cards for Selig, which is an important reminder of how Major League Baseball will do whatever it wants, no matter how wildly unpopular the decision is.

 

Regardless of his relative unpopularity, some fans are still defending Selig's merits.

 

“Yeah, I think Bud should be in. I mean, he benefitted in every way possible from steroid use, but the fact is he never actually took steroids, and that's the most important thing.” One unnamed Milwaukee resident said, “Guys who took it just to recover from an injury once, guys who were already Hall of Famers before they started using, and guys that were rumored to use them but it was never proven, those guys are the real frauds here.”

 

Along with his bold stance of ignoring steroid use, Selig will likely be remembered for his other work in baseball as well, such as canceling the 1994 World Series as acting commissioner due to a strike, or declaring the All Star Game a tie in his own hometown, then making it count towards the World Series from then on, or moving his family's baseball team into a more lucrative league, and moving the Astros out of the very same league years later, ensuring daily interleague play, rendering it meaningless.

 

So congratulations to Bud Selig, Performance Enhancing Drugs Trailblazer, and the first guilty as sin person from the steroid era to join the Hall of Fame.

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Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth in what you have written.  Bob Klapisch is the beat writer for the Bergen Record and covers mostly the Yankkees.  Below are his thoughts (from todays paper).

 

As for Bonds and Clemens, both have received my votes for years, not because PEDs weren’t game-changers. They were and still are. I’m not necessarily advocating for a generation of juicers. But as I’ve written before, if the federal government couldn’t nail Bonds and Clemens for steroids, don’t expect me to punish them, either. If commissioners Selig and Manfred say Bonds and Clemens were and are in good standing, that meets the threshold for my vote.

Besides, if you’re looking for someone to lash out against for the pharmaceutical era, Selig is the better target. It was on his watch that PEDs washed over the sport like a monsoon. Furthermore, Selig was complicit in the collusion between owners against free agents in the 1980s; the commissioner himself was called as a witness in the case that ultimately ruled in favor of the players.

If Selig had been on my Hall of Fame ballot – which he wasn’t, his candidacy was decided on by the Today’s Game Era committee – I would’ve voted against him. I would’ve said so loudly.

 

http://www.northjersey.com/story/sports/columnists/bob-klapisch/2017/01/17/96678202/

 

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