In the 144-year narrative of our national pastime, five men have hit 60 home runs in one season. Henry Aaron never did it. Willie Mays never did it. One did it three times.
As his reward, Sammy Sosa received 71 of 569 possible votes (12.5 percent) for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Three men have hit more than 700 career home runs. Sosa didn't do it. Mark McGwire didn't do it. The all-time leader hit 762.
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As his reward, Barry Bonds received 36.2 percent of the votes needed from the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
There was only one Cy Young and his beyond-the-realm of modern baseball's 511 wins. There also is one man who, as his league's outstanding pitcher, won the award named in Young's honor seven times.
As his reward, Roger Clemens received 37.6 percent of the 75 percent needed to gain induction to Cooperstown.
Clemens threw 46 career shutouts. None of them was a more emphatic statement than the one the BBWAA made Wednesday.
From the most impressive list of candidates since the first few years of the Hall of Fame in the 1930s, the BBWAA voted no one into the 2013 class.
And you know what?
The shutout looks good on baseball. This is the game's scarlet letter and today it must wear its steroids-stain for the world to see.
This wasn't a dark day in baseball. This was the ultimate wake-up for baseball history. No day better shone the light on the colossal failure by the players union, the collective baseball media and, especially, the greedy owners to adequately address the scourge of performance-enhancing drugs.
Some argue that the Hall of Fame is nothing more than a museum. Well, if that's the case, the museum ought to print out the results of the 2013 balloting in huge letters and post it at the entranceway as a prime artifact of neglect by so many who should have done so much better.
Oh, the trivia-saturated will try to impress you with what they call perspective by pointing out this is actually the eighth time no one was elected. But look at the top three vote getters who were passed over the last time it happened in 1996 and eventually got inducted: Don Sutton. Tony Perez. Phil Niekro.
With all due respect, they are not Bonds, Sosa and Clemens. Beyond that Mark McGwire, the only man other than Sosa who hit 60 homers twice and broke Roger Maris' record, got 16.9 percent of the vote. Rafael Palmeiro, one of only four to amass 3,000 hits and 500 homers, got 8.8 percent. Mike Piazza, the greatest hitting catcher in history with 427 homers and .308 career average, fell 98 votes short.
I feel a little sorry for Craig Biggio, who had 388 of the 427 votes needed and as primarily a second baseman should have been a shoo-in with 3,060 hits. For some indefensible reason, there are still some writers who withhold their votes on a player's first ballot. Biggio, not linked to PEDs, surely will get in soon.
Yet is the steroid-tainted who might not get in for years and might never get enough votes that have led many observers to insist the voting system is broken. The debate has grown so many tentacles. A few even decided not to vote for anyone as a form of protest.
McGwire admitted using PEDs. Bonds said he used, but unknowingly did it. Right. Fresh off his court victory, Clemens is still deluding himself. And guys like Piazza and Jeff Bagwell, who have Hall of Fame numbers, didn't get in on their first and third tries because of suspicions. There are screamers out there who insist there is zero evidence against either of them.
To be fair Piazza did tell The New York Times in 2002 and Bagwell did tell the Houston Chronicle in 1998 that they dabbled in androstenedione. Sorry, that's something. As I wrote last month, when deciding to vote for both (after not voting for the Killingworth native twice), people have long argued about andro, with the medical community settling for calling it a steroids precursor. Andro wasn't banned by the game in the '90s.
I decided this year to parse between Bagwell/Piazza and the rest. Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, McGwire, Palmeiro were not on my ballot. Some argue Clemens and Bonds were easily great enough to be in the hall before touching a PED. Some voted for all the alleged juicers, others none. Some claim they should all be inducted and let future generations tell the story of the era. Others insist that if you turned yourself into an artificial freak of nature you should never get into the hall.
I voted for five players in all — Curt Schilling, Biggio, Piazza, Bagwell and Jack Morris — yet except for Biggio I have no problem with the BBWA shutout. After agonizing over this for years, I have grown surer only of one thing. There is no absolute right or wrong opinion. A solution also will not be easy. I only hope it's not impossible.
