The two most talented and accomplished suspected PED users in baseball history will soon be inducted as Hall of Famers, and anyone who has a problem with that should understand the sport did this to itself.
Maybe this would've happened, no matter what. Maybe the overwhelming careers of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens would've convinced voters eventually. But the actions of the men who run the highest level of baseball ensured it.
Purists remain, and the righteous among a shifting voting bloc will continue to be outspoken. But a clear message is being sent: the taint of performance-enhancing drug use is fading. The world is changing. Logic, reason, and realism are gaining ground.
Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, and Ivan Rodriguez were announced as the 2017 Hall of Fame class on Wednesday. Each has been connected with drug use in some way _ Bagwell and Rodriguez with various degrees of PED suspicion, and Raines with his admission of cocaine use _ but the bigger story is what happened down the list of vote totals from selected Baseball Writers Association of America members.
Disclosure: I cast my first ballot this year, voting for the three inductees, plus Bonds, Clemens, Manny Ramirez, Larry Walker, Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina and Edgar Martinez. PED suspicion (or, in Ramirez's case, suspension) does not and has never bothered me in relation to Hall of Fame cases, for lots of reasons, including my belief that the sport tacitly approved because of the interest generated by higher performances.
A year ago, Clemens received 45.2 percent of the vote and Bonds 44.3. Those numbers jumped to 54.1 and 53.8, respectively, inching them closer to the required 75 percent. History shows the overwhelming majority of players who reach 50 percent are eventually elected, and bigger forces indicate their support is only going to grow.
In a perfect world, this will help sports to finally have an honest conversation about PED use that goes beyond boogeyman arguments.
Maybe that's too much to hope for, but we're going to find out relatively soon, because Bonds and Clemens are highly likely to be inducted in the next two or three years.
When Bonds and Clemens are inducted, the Hall of Fame will be better off. Bonds won seven MVPs, and Clemens seven Cy Young Awards. No other man has won either award as often.
Assuming they used PEDs, they would presumably join others already inducted who used the various pharmaceutical shortcuts of their time, most prominently greenies. As Buck O'Neil famously said, "the only reason players in my time didn't use steroids is because we didn't have them."
But even if you disagree with everything in this column so far, here is an undeniable truth: Bud Selig was baseball's commissioner through the rise and peak of steroid use, and he was just put in by a 15-member veterans committee.
The case that any PED user should be barred from the Hall is very difficult to make when the man who oversaw the whole thing is immortalized in bronze.
Selig was an overwhelming positive for baseball, and not the sole enabler of PEDs. He needed the union's help for any real testing and punishment, and more commitment from the owners. But that's part of the commissioner's job, and if you believe PED use was so important and such a stain on the game, then Selig's induction is a bigger slap than any player's.
So, maybe the BBWAA was always going to come to its senses about PED use. Being more than a decade removed from the height of the controversy allows perspective that is difficult in the moment. For a while, baseball had no rules against PED use. Then, they had testing, but no punishment.
It is impossible to know everyone who used and everyone who didn't, turning the PED focus into a fool's errand that eventually leads to people ridiculously comparing pictures of a guy when he was 34 and 19.
We should be better than this, and it appears as if we are quickly reaching that point.
First, BBWAA members can only vote after 10 years of membership. Baseball's testing program began in 2002. Rafael Palmeiro wagged his finger at Congress in 2005. So the newest voters weren't covering the sport during the most contentious times and might not be as hardline as more experienced voters.
Second, the Hall of Fame's decision 18 months ago to limit votes to BBWAA members who covered the game regularly in the last 10 years eliminated some 200 older voters. Again, a younger group of voters means more acceptance of PED suspicion and less of a rigid line.
Third, and most importantly, the induction of Selig and manager Tony La Russa and others who benefited or enabled PED use means no reasonable person can even pretend the Hall is above anyone with drug suspicion.
Bigger forces are at work here. This is going to happen. Hopefully it will do some good to be confronted like this, if a reasonable and intelligent discussion about PEDs can be had.
Baseball itself made this inevitable, from the moment it profited from increased interest and did not seriously address PEDs as a problem until it was too late. That set in motion a series of events that led us here, when men who used and benefited from PED use are being made immortal with the sport's greatest honor.
Whether you see that as a good or bad thing is up to you.
