Strike one

 January 13, 2007

By roundly rejecting Mark McGwire's candidacy for the Baseball Hall of Fame, the writers who cover the sport sent the strong condemnation of steroid use that the team owners and players should have sent years ago.

The Baseball Writers Association of America voted almost unanimously to send Cal Ripken of the Baltimore Orioles and Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres to the hall--both deserve the honor.

The writers, though, humiliated McGwire. He was one of the most prolific home-run hitters of the game, but he gained only 23.5 percent of the vote on the Hall of Fame ballot announced this week, far short of the 75 percent required for entry.

The writers may get another chance in a few years to condemn baseball's doping era, if reports are true that San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds tested positive for amphetamines last season. Eventually Bonds will retire, and five years after he does he will be eligible for the Hall of Fame.

No one has proof that McGwire took steroids to improve his performance. But McGwire didn't help himself by refusing to answer directly when he was asked in a 2005 congressional hearing if he had used performance-enhancing drugs. McGwire admitted in 1998 that he had used a non-prescription bodybuilding drug that was seen in his locker. (It wasn't banned in baseball, but was for Olympic athletes.) Jose Canseco, another power hitter from the 1990s, claimed in a book that McGwire used steroids. (Canseco was on the Hall of Fame ballot too, but was virtually ignored.)

Baseball, for a long time, was essentially complicit in the performance-enhancement scandal that has cast a shadow on many players. Baseball has started to make up for lost time by instituting a tougher testing regimen. But there is an era of the game that will be forever tainted by questions about which performances were real, and which were doctored.

McGwire gave baseball a lot of thrills in that time, particularly in the 1998 season, when he and Sammy Sosa chased Roger Maris' home-run record for a season. McGwire broke it, hitting 70 home runs.

But it looks like McGwire will never enter the Hall of Fame, except as a tourist with a ticket. By receiving more than 5 percent of the vote, he remains eligible for future consideration. But that likely means only that his tainted career will be picked apart once again next year, and the year after that. Maybe that ignominy will provide the deterrent for other players that has so long been needed.