Kuzul

Andy Pettitte is that soft spoken lefty with the slow Texas drawl. A man dedicated to his faith and his family, tenacious, unflappable in the moment.

He may be among the best pitchers the New York Yankees have ever seen. But he’s also a confessed cheater.

People find it easy to forget that. After all he’s ‘Andy Pettitte’, a good old boy just as likely to read a bible as a scouting report but it is a fact nonetheless. The most shocking revelation to come out of the Mitchell Report, the most easily excused and dismissed of all the PED indiscretions in an era marred by them.

The apologists sang that it was merely HGH and not steroids. They said he was only trying to heal faster in an effort to help his team win games. Sportswriters weakly jabbed when they could have gone in for the kill and his teammates stood beside him without exception.

No player before or after has ever received the public support of the fans and other players more than Andy Pettitte on the day of his repentant press conference, not Alex Rodriguez, and certainly not Jason Giambi. A press conference that felt more like a wake and a rally to help him get through the hard times.

The championships, the post season dominance, a two time 21 game winner, and three time all-star, the first word that comes to mind when I think of Andy Pettitte isn’t “cheater” and I wonder why. I wonder why that isn’t the case with Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Palmeiro, and Roger Clemens. I wonder why they don’t get to hide from their tarnished legacies the way Andy Pettitte does.

Andy Pettitte may never make it to the Hall of Fame and his PED use may play a part in that. Exceptionally good but not great, Pettitte wasn’t a baseball God like the others. He was hardly ever featured on the cover of magazines, never the story, never “the guy”. He was a grinder, not a star beyond our reach.

Even now we understand Pettittes decision to leave the game at a relatively young age. We understand that the man doesn’t want to be away from his family anymore and we empathize in a way that we never do with pro athletes. Andy Pettitte was authentic even when he wasn’t; he was never presented as the perfect player, or the perfect guy, never packaged.

No the first word I think of when I think of Andy Pettitte isn’t “cheater” its “throwback”, and that’s why his cheating stings a little more.

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Talent needs execution like you and I need air to live and thrive. That’s perhaps an extreme analogy but oh so true.

Joba Chamberlain knows this deep within himself.

This uniquely gifted man, lifted up by expectation that now slides down toward a thoroughly middling career because he can’t quite get a handle on “great” and his grip on “good” is slipping.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. A rock star before his foot went from warning track gravel to the outfield grass on his way in from the bullpen; “Joba” was the one-named flame-thrower who defined hype.

A hype that seemed more than justified in those first two months as Chamberlain struck out 34 and allowed only one earned run in his first 24 major league innings.

The rest is perhaps a cautionary tale.

Dazzled by his early dominance, the Yankees pushed Chamberlain into the starting rotation with caution and delicacy. Inconsistency from the pitcher and from the team with regard to his role followed and by 2010 Chamberlain would return to the bullpen with decidedly mixed results.

Chamberlain doesn’t really have a role on the Yankees staff now. The incredibly gluttonous signing of Rafael Soriano supplanted him from the eighth-inning role, and middle relief is a waste bin.

Some have said the Yankees might look to trade him, but Chamberlain’s value has likely never been lower.

You’d think the team might roll the dice one last time and give Chamberlain a chance to best the unimpressive Sergio Mitre in a fight for the fifth spot in the rotation but as of now you’d seemingly be wrong.

Whether frightened by his inconsistency or perhaps the long-term durability of his shoulder the Yankees contend that Chamberlain’s skill set plays better in the ‘pen.

This is of course there prerogative.

The Yankees have given Chamberlain more opportunities to live up to his heady potential than they are used to and though they earned much of the blame for the lackluster results you can’t blame them entirely.

Whether it’s the first or the ninth inning, amidst screams of adulation or derision it’s been on Chamberlain to live up to our limitless hopes while forsaking our ineffable fears. That he has failed to do exactly that puts his career on the cusp of something seemingly unimaginable three years ago.

Moments of truth are forecast too often in the realm of sports but few demand that trite imagery more than Joba does in 2011. A year filled with waning opportunity, definition and either the strange rise or typical fall of Joba Chamberlain.

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It’s always been a restrictive club. A player’s got to earn his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame, has to pay his dues.

Unanimous election is unheard of; even making it on the first ballot is a challenge.

Yet while many baseball purists and dignitaries alike laud the intricate web of unspoken guidelines that the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) adheres to, others worry that the Hall is becoming too restrictive, showing more respect for baseball historians than the fans.

Of course, the Hall of Fame is meant to be more than a chapel for baseball’s worshipful masses, standing as a brick-and-mortar narrative for the game itself.

As protectors of that narrative, the Hall of Fame, the league, and the BBWAA have always worked to keep out those deemed unworthy: players who peak just shy of greatness and those who flout the rules and act dishonorably.

For some the definition of “greatness” is subjective and at times unreachable or even indecipherable. Is Fred McGriff‘s career, one on par with or better than Hall of Famers Willie Stargell and Willie McCovey, really worth just 17.9 percent of the vote this year?

Did it really take 14 years for the B.B.W.A.A. to recognize “greatness” in Bert Blyleven? As if his career wins and strikeouts matured over time.

Were players like John Franco and Joe Carter really as unworthy of a second year on the ballot as Travis Fryman and Kirk Rueter? Is 300 wins realistic? Are 400 home runs insignificant now or must the bar be lowered?

While the debate never ceases on the “just misses” and the definition of greatness their appears to be a developing consensus with regard to this era’s admitted, discovered, and suspected cheaters.

This bias, healthy and perhaps just, was first inflicted on Mark McGwire (whose candidacy would have been suspect without PED’s) and now Rafael Palmeiro.

Only four men have hit 500 home runs and reached the 3,000 hit plateau. Three are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, the fourth is Rafael Palmeiro.

Still “Raffy” was only able to get 11 percent of the vote in his first year of eligibility thanks to his positive test for PED’s in 2005.

As time goes by more players with the stink of PED’s will become eligible, armed with gaudy numbers and a hope that time has eased the scorn of purists.

See the B.B.W.A.A. can and likely will keep these guys out of the Hall of Fame on the strength of rumor if they can find nothing more fungible. Same as they’ll keep out anyone who falls short of their ever tightening view of greatness.

Remember they protect the narrative, the sanctity of not just the Hall but also of the game itself. And it is an important job within the realm of this sport. A dividing line between good and legendary, real and fake.

The Hall of Fame needs gate keepers, but it also needs to reflect on the complete history of the game. A history that will be slighted by omission.

This is the price you pay for fireworks, baseball’s long ball era hangover. And while many of the players that will become eligible for the Hall of Fame will seem irredeemably flawed, each will have his merits despite those failings.

Together, baseball’s band of cheats have had a deep and sustained impact on the game for good or bad, an impact that can’t be whitewashed away.

We can’t escape or effectively ignore this last quarter century in baseball history, this most recent renaissance that will always be soiled by fraud.

And while those players who so carelessly jeopardized the purity of the game should see their legacies marred and their cases for enshrinement weighed heavily, the Hall of Fame must represent this bleak time just like any other.

After all, it stands to reason that if you ignore history in an effort to protect the past, you tarnish the future.

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