The Bill James “Hall of Fame Monitor” has him at 169.5, with 100 the standard for a likely HoFamer. The BR Hall of Fame Standards rating only has him at 42, with 50 being an “average HoFamer.”

Hey, what about Greenies (amphetamines)? … they are now banned, are the voters gonna start to look at that? It opens up Pandora’s Box, and it will get stranger and stranger, as Derek says.

On Rose, I think the public as a whole doesn’t get how dangerous betting on baseball is. It usually boils down to the flawed argument — that everyone bets on baseball/sports. I openly admit to betting legally on baseball and the Super Bowl.

When you compare his numbers with the likes of a Frank Thomas or a Jeff Bagwell, it’s eye-opening. I would pick them over McGwire as my two 1st base representatives for this era.
Why only TWO representatives? I agree Thomas and Bagwell have better careers than McGwire but it’s closer than you suggest. But I also think all three are among the ten best to EVER play 1B and would put them all in. I can’t see how it’s reasonable to eliminate a player because he played in an era that was exceptionally strong for his position; and the opposite is even worse.

Also it’s not true that McGwire only did ONE thing. His OBP has been brought up before, but I’d note that it’s higher than such great “hitters” as Pete Rose, Cap Anson, Honus Wager, and Rod Carew.

More to the original topic, I’m not surprised that some voters won’t vote for McGwire because they aren’t sure about his career or that they won’t vote for him on the first ballot (though that’s totally screwy to me — either you are a hall of famer or you aren’t). But I’m amazed that three in four don’t plan to vote for him essentially because of rumor and speculation.

There were, certainly, a certain chunk of people who wanted Rose to admit it and try and make amends, and they were largely appalled by his partial, false admission and his “I can’t say I’m sorry” apologies.

There is an interesting parrallel here, though – there are those who’ve said that McGwire’s failure to admit he used steroids is central to their denials. Would admission help? I’m not sure it would, even if he did use.

If we instead focus on relative performance, then to some extent the steroid allegations become less relevant. The question is then “Was Mark McGuire a top performer during his era?”

I know the Hall has tightened the rules so it would take action from the commissioner for this to even be a real issue but writers have wielded their swords of (self)righteousness on this issue too and it has affected the commissioner I believe…

The writers (and presumably voters): “c’mon Pete…just apologize….then when he does, “your apologize wasn’t good enough….”

I agree with the premise of your article, but this line is absurd. The closest thing to evidence against him is the smoking gun of andro and his crying like a schoolgirl while muttering, “I’m not here to talk about the past” even though “talking about the past” is precisely what grand jury testimony is.

It’s not absurd at all. Andro was legal. That’s not a smoking gun, it’s a not-smoking Nerf ball. We have no evidence that he did anything else, beyond Canseco’s say-so.

Now, whether or not you want to say you think his testimony damns him, or whatever, you’re free to do that – but it’s speculative. But did Raffy’s stern denial compared to Mac’s statements teach us nothing? You can’t put stock in the weakness of his denial any more than you can in the strength of Raffy’s.

Even if you think it leads inevitably to a particular conclusion, we still have no evidence to support it.

And once we’ve started down this path, it will lead inevitably to stranger and stranger things.