Give Me Tainted Greats over Mediocre Saints in MLB's Hall of Fame

Like any major sports league worth its salt, Major League Baseball has been running their marketing machine hard the past 10 years or so to expand fan interest. 

Baseball has grown from simply being America's "summer pastime" to being a year-long obsession for baseball junkies all over the world, myself included.

From the seven-month regular season and playoffs, to the top prospects Arizona Fall League. 

From the hype of the First-Year Player Draft and the promise of the next can't-miss phenom to the long-standing traditional Hot Stove League where our hometown heroes become free agent villains, and former enemies become our middle-of-the-order thumpers.  

It's a year-round baseball buffet.

But the offseason subject that really tickles our warm, fuzzy places is the annual voting by the Baseball Writers Association of America on which former players get inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

And while Hall of Fame debates have always been heated and entertaining, modern metrics and other advancements in baseball analysis have taken argumentation to a whole new level.

So I'm here to dumb things down without apology.  

I am sick and tired of players voted into the Hall of Fame that make me yawn.  These are the players whose supporters' first arguments on their behalf include:

• Player A is in the Hall, and Player B is marginally better, so Player B must go in.
• The player didn't have a long career, but was the best in the game for X number of years (typically only five or so).
• The player, while never wowing anyone, had good production for a long time while never using performance-enhancing drugs.  He is "clean" and that counts for something.

• There are only X number of players at that position in the Hall; it's an "underrepresented" position.

If the arguments start there, you can keep 'em.  Please. 

These are also the writers who preface every Hall of Fame discussion with the statement, "I'm a 'big Hall' guy."  

Um, yeah, I already guessed.

On the flip side, these are the same writers who have taken self-righteous stands against players who not only have tested positive for PEDs, but those simply suspected of using.  

As if players haven't been looking for every conceivable advantage they could get since the dawn of time.  For most of baseball history, there weren't even rules in the books regarding PEDs. 

Heck, there's evidence that baseball players have been using testosterone enhancing concoctions since the early 1900s!

Doctored baseballs, "juiced" players (whatever juice you can think of), "dirty" players, racists, sign-stealers and gamblers (You think Pete Rose was the only one?  Yeah, I bet...) can all be found in the hallowed Hall, caught red-handed or not. 

For me, the greater travesty is that the Hall of Fame is fast becoming not much different than my son's kindergarten graduation. 

"Good job, buddy!  You're an All-Star!  You're as good as all these other guys, so in you go!"

It's meaningless.

For all the posturing writers out there, I have news for you: It's already too late.  

It's time to climb down off your various high horses because the Hall of Fame has already been compromised in just about every conceivable way.  

Truth is, you're using a water filter to protect a sewage drain.  You're defending a pickpocket who has already cracked the safe.  You strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel.  

Oh yeah, I went all Biblical on you.

What we're left with as baseball fans is our own personally customized Hall of Fame, anyway.  It's entertainment, folks, and what's wrong with that?  

In my mind, the real Star Wars movies were Episodes four through six, there was only one Matrix (no sequels) and Bruce Sutter is not a Hall of Famer. 

When I think of a baseball Hall of Famer, I want it all.  

I want a guy who was excellent for a long time, a player who, for many years, people stopped to watch just to see what would happen.  I want a 15-time All-Star with multiple MVPs, ideally, but it's possible he was robbed in certain years.  

Did he use performance-enhancing pharmaceuticals?  Eh, I'm not too worried about it.  But did he make us say "wow" on a consistent basis?

If he was a great pitcher in a good pitcher's era, he better be setting unbreakable ERA records.

If he was a great slugger in a hitter's era, records should be shattered.

So, in the next few years, when truly great players out of the Steroid Era reach the ballot, I hope the writers will come to their senses and put players in who were always amazing us.  

Not just the ones who we're absolutely positive were "clean," yet must have their stats put through an algebraic equation to determine if they are Hall worthy.

And yeah, I'm a "small Hall" guy.  So there.