A few years back I was doing some kind of research on pitchers. I think it was in an effort to prove that Walter Johnson was, if not the best, certainly the most dominant pitcher of all time. In any event as I was looking up things like strike outs, shut outs, complete games, and the like, it amazed me to see how often Bert Blyleven's name appeared on lists that included names like Johnson, Grove, Feller and the like. So, I certainly have no beef with his election to the HOF yesterday. It can also be remembered the contributions that Blyleven made to the 1979 World Series champion Pirates. However, I also remember how in 1980 Blyleven quit on the Pirates and went AWOL for a time, and how this eventually led to his being traded by the Bucs. Not a classy move at the time, and not in retrospect, either.
I also cannot dispute the HOF credentials of Robby Alomar, so congratulations to him as well.
The other sidelight to the HOF voting results was the low vote totals of the "steroids guys" like Mark McGwire and Raphael Palmiero, and it was somewhat disturbing to see that a guy like Jeff Bagwell, who to my knowledge had never been linked to steroids, seems to being painted with the same broad brush as the guys whom we know are guilty of the sins of the era.
I'm not sure what the right way to go is, but it seems to me that visitors to Cooperstown in the 2020's are not going to see plaques for great, if steroid-enhanced, players like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, and their ilk, and will instead be seeing plaques for more players like Andre Dawson, a very good player, but not one who screams "Hall of Fame" to me when I think of him.
As I said, I don't know the right answer, or even if there is a right answer to this knotty little conundrum.
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