America at Large:For the past few days I've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the postman. The ballots for the Baseball Hall of Fame went out on Monday. The day after I get mine it's going straight back, and Mark McGwire's name won't be checked.
When I retired from the daily newspaper dodge a year and a half ago, ensuring I would continue as an elector was a priority. I'd done the maths and realised while I might not be around to reject the candidacy of Barry Bonds (at least five years hence), I would probably be afforded the opportunity to give McGwire the thumbs-down for Cooperstown.
And judging from what I've been reading in newspapers this week I'm not alone. The hope is barring the door to Big Mac will not only send a message but set a precedent, and that each time one of these steroid-addled former players comes up for election he can expect a similar response. No game on earth relies more on statistical data than baseball, and on numbers alone McGwire's election would be a slam-dunk: no player with more than 534 career home runs has failed to gain induction on the first ballot. McGwire hit 583 of them. He was the first man to hit 70 home runs in a season, a record since surpassed by Bonds, and his average of one homer per 10.61 at-bats ranks him the most efficient in baseball history.
What these statistics might look like in the absence of performance-enhancing substances remains unlearned - and, indeed, McGwire, like Bonds and many other drug cheats, was never caught red-handed. But in the midst of his 1998 assault on the home run record, Associated Press scribe Steve Wilstein reported McGwire kept a vial of androstenedione in his locker. Andro isn't technically a steroid: it only helps the body create steroids. And, McGwire pointed out, it was not at the time included on the list of substances banned by Major League Baseball.
(It would, on the other hand, have gotten him tossed out of the Olympics faster than you can say Ben Johnson.) The curious response to this episode was that many of McGwire's fellow players, and not a few of Wilstein's colleagues, vilified the reporter for having invaded the sanctity of Big Mac's locker - even though the andro had been sitting out in plain sight.
In March of 2005, as it became apparent drug use among Major League players had reached epidemic proportions, a Congressional committee subpoenaed half a dozen Major League players - including McGwire, but not Bonds. McGwire's tearful testimony that day was at best evasive, and certainly cowardly. After a hand-wringing speech about the importance of setting an example for the nation's youth, he was asked point-blank about his own reliance on performance-enhancing substances.
"My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardising my friends, my family, and myself," he stammered.
Pressed on the issue, McGwire responded: "I'm not here to talk about the past."
I've known Mark McGwire since 1984, when as a rosy-cheeked lad just out of college he visited Boston as a member of the US Olympic team that would win the gold medal in Los Angeles. In an exhibition game at Fenway Park that summer, McGwire hit two home runs. (Another future major leaguer, Will Clark, hit three, but for both players the performance-enhancing instrument involved was an aluminium bat.) I covered him for much of his big league career, from the time he broke in as a rookie with the Oakland As through his subsequent heroics with the St Louis Cardinals. Beginning in 1992, hampered by injuries, his numbers began to tail off, but in a partial season (1995) he abruptly rebounded to hit a remarkable 39 homers in 31 at-bats.
The next season, at the age of 30, a man who had never before hit 50 or more home runs in a single year rattled off preternatural season totals of 53, 58, 58, 70, and 65, before his body began to break down, a disintegration so abrupt it is nearly as damning as the other evidence. Two years after he hit 135 home runs in two seasons, McGwire was out of baseball.
I'm all for fair play, due process, and the constitutional right against self-incrimination, but in my view McGwire's deeds are incriminating enough to demand approbation. And the Hall of Fame vote is the only weapon at my disposal.
The McGwire apologists point out he was never found to be in violation of any Major League rule or policy and his accomplishments should hence be accepted at face value. "I'm voting for him because baseball has not declared him ineligible," Tom Powers of the St Paul Pioneer Press wrote yesterday. "I am not a detective, a doctor or a priest. Based on the numbers, he gets my vote. He has 583 career home runs." Five hundred homers has historically been the benchmark. Fifteen eligible players previously reached that total, and all of them were granted a place of immortality in the Hall. Eleven of those went in on the first ballot.
The electorate consists of 575 present and former members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, and since a player must be named on 75 per cent of the ballots for induction, McGwire would need 432 votes. A few days ago the Associated Press conducted a straw poll, and learned of 125 prospective voters, 74 concur with our position and will not vote for McGwire, as opposed to 23 who said they will. (Of the remainder, 16 were undecided, five refused to reveal their positions, five were prevented by their employers from voting, and two said they plan to abstain.)
If that form holds, the message should go out loud and clear. The only better result one could hope for is a long shot: if McGwire somehow gets less than five per cent (29 or fewer votes), his name would disappear from the ballot forever.
