The Cooperstown Juice Bar

(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

1991, again, this time the average dropping to .201.

Over that three-year stretch, Big Mac's average was .223, 31 HR, and 92 RBI per year were nice, but he was a feast-or-famine hitter. Kind of like another, more extreme case who was staring to become a punchline about this time.

When McGwire started breaking down in '93 and '94, it seemed like he was all but done. Then, at 32, the man just went bananas.

Yes—.312 BA-52 HR-113 RBI—bananas.

Two years later, he and Sammy saved baseball.

But while everyone else was marveling at these Ruthian swats that Mark was sending home with fans nationwide, I was still remembering the guy who had seemed like a rich man's Rob Deer less than a decade prior. Wondering how the hell a guy just explodes like that at his age, when a hitter is supposed to be slowing down a notch or two.

It didn't seem right then, and after his stonewalling performance in Congress, it DAMN sure doesn't seem right now.

At 30, it was wasted potential. At 36, it was shady immortality. At 41, he pissed it all away to avoid perjury charges. DENIED

When I was getting into baseball, there was a video being advertised on TV and in magazines called "The 500 Home Run Club." At the time, said club had amassed 13 members in over 100 years of baseball. (Maybe 12, Schmidt might not have been there when the video was produced.)

We now have 25, doubling the club's membership in the last 20 years. In the 18 years before the video's production, only Frank Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, and Reggie Jackson had reached 500.

Of the TEN guys who've joined since Eddie Murray in 1996, only Ken Griffey, Jim Thome, and Frank Thomas have escaped suspicion...so far.

Many within baseball are prepared to simply stick their heads in the sand and move along with life, and there's nothing wrong with that, if you choose to do so.

It's just made life more difficult for the writers who make these decisions that will be derided for generations to come, one way or the other.

Eventually, all these men may very well join the Hall of Fame, but if they do, they should all be segregated into their own special room.

We'll call it "The Juice Bar."

Please observe all necessary safety precautions when entering.

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