How to deal with the glut of former steroid users now appearing on the Hall of Fame ballot has long been a hot-button topic for baseball writers. Many younger, more forgiving baseball writers are willing to overlook the prolific use of PEDs in the game.
Jeff Passan, one of the country’s best young baseball columnists writing for yahoo.com, fired off his own passionate response to Morgan’s letter — which he implies was written at the behest of the Hall of Fame itself — and declared that he would not be filling out his Hall of Fame ballot this year or in the future because of it.
“I will not participate in this charade where the shepherds charged with telling the story of baseball want to avoid telling the ugly parts,” Passan wrote.
Passan is a gifted and thoughtful writer. It’s no surprise that he makes solid points. But Morgan’s argument falls into line with the way I’ve tried to deal with the steroid issue.
I can’t do anything about those who are already members of the Hall of Fame, whatever they may have done or however they may have behaved. Someone else, in a different time and culture, thought they belonged and voted them in. So be it.
Morgan cites the same criteria for disqualification that I’ve always tried to apply. If a player failed a drug test for PEDs, admitted to using steroids or was identified as a user in the Mitchell Report, I won’t vote for him.
You simply can’t blatantly fail three of those qualifications (even if a plethora of others were doing the same thing) and be considered a Hall of Famer.
I take my vote seriously. I feel a duty and responsibility to Hall of Famers like Joe Morgan to do the right thing by them, honoring what they accomplished in playing the game the right way.
Jim Reeves is a former Star-Telegram sports columnist and for the second year in a row is a finalist for the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for Meritorious Contributions to Baseball Writing.