Baseball Hall of Fame debate in full swing

Well, the votes are in and as usual, I have a big problem with the things I've seen in this year's Major League Baseball Hall of Fame ballots.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not na*ve enough to believe anything was going to be any different from what it is, but it still really irks me. It's seems, the Hall has become more of a cathedral than simply a showcase for the best players the game has ever seen, as it was originally intended to be.

Just like there has been every year in recent memory, there's quite a bit of debate about a number of the players who were on this year's ballot because they're all from the "steroid era." I just have one thing to say to all of the voters who consider such things as a reason to not include a player in the Hall, regardless of what he did on the field ... Get over yourselves, people.

Not only does it bug me that it's OK for players from an era in which pitchers would scuff the ball with sandpaper, who knows what kinds of substances would be applied to bats to improve hitting and players who are currently in the Hall were known to have used amphetamines, cocaine and a number of other illegal substances, but it also really bothers me what I heard from a voter just the other day.

Ken Gurnick, of mlb.com, a former reporter for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, said Tuesday that he wouldn't vote for anyone from that era because, "I just don't know who did and who didn't." He went on to add, "Some people quibble over when the era starts, but the bulk of (Jack Morris') career was, in my opinion, well before all of the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs."

To give a little bit of context, Jack Morris was the only player Gurnick voted for this year.

Well, I've got news for you, Mr. Gurnick. Jack Morris played between 1977 and 1994, putting the latter portion of his career well into the "steroid era" that pretty much everybody knows began in the late 1980s. On top of that, this year's ballot included two of the best pitchers to ever take the mound -- Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine -- and to say they don't deserve a nod because they may or may not have used PEDs is just ludicrous.

In my book, the fact that Maddux was as dominant as he was in that era is the best reason to include him, not a reason to exclude him. And honestly, at 6 feet tall and maybe 170 pounds with a fastball no better than many high school players I've seen, does anybody honestly think there's any chance this guy was juicing?

There's just no excuse for the fact that although he got in on his first attempt, Maddux not only wasn't the first unanimous selection, but the 97.2 percent of the vote he received wasn't even the highest ever. In fact, it doesn't even rank in the top seven.

Though Maddux, Glavine and Frank Thomas did get in on this year's ballot, there were a number of players who not only didn't get in this time, but probably never will, simply because of that "steroid era" mentality. Guys like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro were all suspected of using or admitted to using steroids before the 2003 ban, so it really isn't something that should be considered if what so many players who are already in the Hall did is OK.

And don't even get me started on the arguments against guys like Pete Rose. Yeah, I get it that his lifetime ban from the sport is what keeps him out of the Hall, but I still think it's a bit much, given the fact that the League doesn't really control the Hall.

I've always been of the opinion that what a player did on the field should be all that's considered, but I'm starting to see that I'm in the minority, when it comes to that belief. I don't think on-field accomplishments alone will ever be enough to get into the Hall anymore, and that really bothers me.

But I digress.

Even though there are several players who probably won't get in, but absolutely would be on my ballot if I had voting rights, those who got in this year were certainly deserving. I'm not exactly entirely satisfied with these selections, though.

There's no doubt in my mind that the career numbers of all three of this year's inductees are more than enough to make them worthy of enshrinement in the Hall, but one particular selection confuses me, a little bit.

If people are going to say Maddux shouldn't be in because he might have juiced, or that McGwire or Bonds shouldn't be in because their issues happened before the ban, why is Thomas a first-ballot Hall of Famer? I don't personally care about steroid use, but I'm certainly not alone in my assumption that Thomas had to have done something.

I really think the biggest issue at hand here is the simple fact that the members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America who get to cast their votes on these ballots have just lost sight of what it's supposed to be. The Hall of Fame is not a holy cathedral where only the most morally upstanding and righteous people are allowed to go, but rather, a place to forever showcase the talents of baseball's greats.

I think ESPN's Jayson Stark said it best when he wrote Wednesday that the system the Baseball Writer's Association of America currently uses to decide who does or doesn't make it into the Hall of Fame is broken. And what's saddest about that is the fact that I'm afraid it might be beyond repair.