O/T 2026 HOF Contemporary Ballot

[gunboat82]

Originally Posted by rats60

Alex Rodriguez was rumored to have failed a 2003 test, them was tested for the rest of his career and never failed. He admitted to using steroids from 2001-2003 and 2010-2012.

I think it's quite possible that players like Ortiz continued using through retirement and weren't detected. My main point is that it also requires an inference that MLB made a conscious decision to look the other way, knowing full well that players can and do cheat the drug testing. It would mean MLB tested purely for show, to placate the public and perhaps get Congress off their backs.

That wouldn't surprise me at all... professional sports leagues have no guiding principle beyond maximizing profits. But it also makes it extremely difficult for me to condemn known users for violating the "integrity" of the sport, or to give players who flunk the eyeball test a pass. I just think it's logically inconsistent for voters to act like purists when it comes to individual players, while giving a moral pass to MLB, a co-conspirator that reaped the financial benefits of steroids and marketed the hell out of the most prominent users.

Bottom line: I think all the elite performers should be in the Hall, with a notation on their plaques that they played under the cloud of the steroid era. And if we're going to assume that certain players used PEDs after testing was in place, then we should also assume that MLB knew about it and ignored it to protect the product.