Cooperstown?: Mark McGwire Steroids Confession Could Help Define Hall of Fame

The infamous speculation gained validity the moment Mark McGwire issued a statement to The Associated Press on Monday, confirming that he took steroids over the course of his career.

This isn’t any more newsworthy today as it should have been 12 years ago when McGwire and Sammy Sosa were busy revitalizing baseball with their home run barrages in the summer of ’98.

The only difference is that today we act like we care.

After the 1994 strike shooed many fans away from the game, Major League Baseball needed something to bring fathers and sons back to the best summer vacation spots in America. Big Mac and Slammin’ Sammy were perfect. As the sluggers’ home run totals climbed that year, so did the attendance and ratings figures.

How was this happening? How were two men launching baseballs out of the yard at rates that had never been seen before? How was the rest of baseball mightily attempting to keep up with the Cardinal and the Cub? Nobody cared. Baseball was back.

It’s apparent that “integrity” and “character” were not the two most common words thrown around the owner’s suite and the press box. Everyone who had a hand in baseball—from the players to their agents to the commissioner to the media—only wanted to see a great show. Be left in awe today, ask questions tomorrow.

But here we are beginning 2010 and the long lost memories of those titillating summers have been replaced with blank Hall Of Fame ballots, calls for the heads of steroid users, and an air of nobility infiltrating those who police the sport.

Most of us suspected McGwire juiced during the good ol’ days. So much time had passed since McGwire’s March 2005 hearing on Capitol Hill where he famously said, “I’m not here to talk about the past,” that we just assumed McGwire was dirty. Since then, the discussion moved to McGwire’s Hall of Fame candidacy.

And that’s where we are today. What exactly is baseball’s Hall of Fame? What’s its purpose? Regardless of whether you feel McGwire should or shouldn’t be elected, Big Mac’s admission of steroids can help define the Hall of Fame as we move into this new decade.

Alex Rodriguez couldn’t do it because he won’t be on the ballot for at least another 10 years. Barry Bonds? Roger Clemens? We are still waiting to hear from them. But McGwire is currently on the ballot, and that brings a sense of urgency to this issue.

Currently, Cooperstown is trying to fulfill two agendas.

The Hall of Fame is intended to be a baseball museum and tell the history of this sport. This is good.

The Hall of Fame is also trying to be the watchdog for the integrity of baseball by ensuring that those who left an indelible blotch on the identity of the game do not forever stand next to the greatest players who have ever lived. This is irrelevant.

Personally, I believe Mark McGwire should be in the Hall of Fame, but only because I’m a firm believer in agenda No. 1. The Hall of Fame ought to be a historical museum for baseball. As much as some may like to, you can’t take a razor blade to history and skim a few years off the grand total.

Anyone, baseball fan or not, should be able to walk into Cooperstown and come out of there with a grasp of everything this sport has been through in America. The good and the bad must be covered because it is all a part of the story. What other reason does the Hall of Fame serve?

Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com was once nice enough to share his thoughts on the Hall of Fame with me, and he proposed the idea of a “steroid era” exhibit so that we can tell the full story of baseball but continue to honor the greatest players with plaques.

“But they’re very image-conscious at the Hall and like to think of it as the last bastion of purity,” said Crasnick. “So I’m not sure that would ever happen.”

What are they so afraid of? Baseball doesn’t have a pure history, so why are we pretending that it does?

I’m not going to take a hacksaw to the Hall, but players who used amphetamines showed up in the Hall Of Fame before players who used steroids even showed up on the ballot.

If some are worried that having steroid users in the Hall will damage the “image” of the game, get over it. Nothing that’s in the Hall will tarnish the current product. McGwire’s induction isn’t going to change my view of Derek Jeter. Silly argument.

I respect those, such as Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, who declare they will never vote for anyone who was even related to steroids. That’s fine. Everybody is entitled to his or her opinion.

But don’t act as if, by casting a Hall vote, you are serving the public and distinguishing the greatest ever from the greatest today. Fans aren’t stupid; we are all capable of digging through old books and films and deciding on our own which players were truly a cut above the rest.

And certainly don’t act like coming down on McGwire, and others, is an act done to preserve integrity, character, or whatever else.

If there wasn’t any integrity while we were all dumbfounded in 1998, then there isn’t any now.

But that’s OK. What we have now is years of rich history that deserve to be told to fans everywhere.

McGwire, Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, and even Pete Rose deserve a place in the Hall because their names have been such a monumental piece of baseball.

If we step back for a moment and look at the course the game has really taken over the years, we will realize that the story we find on our hands today is much more fascinating than the contrived one we are trying claim.

Thousands will convene to upstate New York every summer for the beautiful parade that is the Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

With McGwire’s admission, we finally have a chance to give the Hall of Fame a refreshing splash of honesty and, more importantly, clarity and perspective.