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For the first time in history, readers will get a chance to have a say in a single vote (at the very least) for the Baseball Writers’ Association of America Hall of Fame vote.

According to Deadspin, the website has officially bought a ballot from a voting member for the annual elections:

Our idea was to make a mockery and farce of the increasingly solemn and absurd election process, and to take some power from the duly appointed custodians of the game’s history and turn it over to the public.

Well, with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America having released its official ballot today, we can happily announce that we have a vote. A member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America thought our plan sounded like a pretty (expletive) good idea and sold us his/her vote, making a stand against the idea that a somewhat random subsection of the baseball press should maintain the power to confer what is, regrettably, the game’s most prestigious honor. For obvious reasons, the voter will remain anonymous for now, but he/she will be filling out his/her ballot on behalf of Deadspin readers, who will be polled in binding elections. The voter will announce his/her name and motivations once his/her vote has been officially cast.

That’s right, one voter has agreed to let the website determine whom they will vote for. The website also noted that it is still buying votes.

This year’s ballot includes newcomers Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas and Jeff Kent, joining holdovers Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Craig Biggio and Jack Morris.

There’s a lot that comes to mind when it comes to this. Is it even legal? And, what do fans think about it?

Is It Legal?

While nothing specifically states it is illegal to sell your Hall of Fame vote in the BBWAA Constitution, there are a few bylaws that seem to make it frowned upon.

Article IV, Section 5 from the bylaws specifically states this:

1. Any member convicted by the Board of Directors of misusing or attempting to misuse his or her membership shall be expelled for five years and his or her membership card shall be revoked.

Selling your vote to a website could constitute misusing your membership. But, if the proceeds go to a charitable organization, then it gets even stickier, according to Article II, Section 2B:

1. The Association shall not sponsor or endorse any marketable physical product or suffer any unauthorized use of its insignia. It may, however, elect to make available to commercial television the presentation of its annual awards, provided that all net financial revenues obtained by the Association from such a presentation are distributed to legitimate charitable organizations of the Association’s choosing, at the earliest possible date, in order for the Association to maintain its not-for-profit status.

The biggest question is, does selling this vote fall under the category of annual awards? That’s likely something the lawyers would have to decide.

Regardless, this particular voter selling his or her vote is doing something no other journalist has done in history. Never have fans had the opportunity to cast a vote like this. Granted, hundreds or thousands of votes will be tabulated to create just one, but it’s still history in the making.

What Fans Are Saying

Since Deadspin announced it had bought a vote, a lot of fans have taken to Twitter:

And that is what a majority of fans are saying on Twitter. Most like the idea. 

In The End

Regardless of your personal beliefs on the system, no player has ever missed the Hall of Fame by one vote. The closest has been Nellie Fox, who missed the Hall of Fame by two votes in 1985. He was elected by the veteran’s committee in 1997, but never received enough votes from the writers.

However, Fergie Jenkins did come the closest to not getting elected in 1991. He received 334 votes when he needed 333 for election. Ralph Kiner experienced the same thing in 1975 when he received 273 votes when he needed 272. Willie Keeler was also elected by two votes in 1939.

So one vote didn’t make the difference, but two the other way could have.

In the grand scheme of things, one vote shouldn’t make the difference. Last year, there were 569 ballots cast with 427 votes needed for election.

If this “fan vote” ballot does keep a player from being elected, that still means there would be at least 142 other ballots that kept a certain player off the ballot.

However, until the writer who sold their vote is revealed, there’s not much to dissect. While some will have a major problem with it, especially those who paid their dues in the media, the bottom line is that he or she can vote however they like.

The only major issue that may come from this is if the writer personally profits from selling their vote. If that’s the case, then there are major conflict of interest issues that will have to be approached in the future.

If the money goes to charity, then it doesn’t hurt to try something new. Baseball gives fans a vote when it comes to the All-Star Game. Sometimes players elected aren’t deserving, but that’s the fans’ vote.

At least with the Hall of Fame, it’s only one vote (so far) and has no true bearing on a player being enshrined. It will take hundreds of more ballots to elect a player.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Hall of Fame voting results won’t be announced until Jan. 8, but this year’s ballot was announced by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday afternoon.

Headlining this year’s class of first-time eligible players are former Braves pitchers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine and White Sox slugger Frank Thomas. Starter Mike Mussina and second baseman Jeff Kent also figure to get a decent amount of support in their first go-around.

That group will join 17 holdovers from last year, including Craig Biggio, Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza and Tim Raines, all of whom received over 50 percent of the vote last year.  

Last year’s vote was the first time since 1996 that not a single person was voted into Cooperstown.  To be voted in, each player must be voted-in by 75 percent of the 600 voters in the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Now that we have a look at the ballot and the requirements, here are my projected odds on each of the top candidates earning enshrinement in 2014.

Begin Slideshow

Careful: The question posed above might just be a trick one. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

First, let’s remind readers what Carlos Beltran and David Ortiz have done so far this October in helping get their respective teams, the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox, to the 2013 World Series.

Beltran, 36, has continued to make his case as perhaps the best postseason performer ever (at least on a per-game basis) by hitting .256/.383/.538 with two homers, six extra-base hits and 12 RBI—tops among all players—in his 11 games. He’s done all sorts of Beltran things this month, all of which have helped him reach the World Series for the first time in his 16 years in the majors.

Here’s a refresher:

As for Ortiz, well, the Red Sox’s slugging designated hitter is headed to his third career Fall Classic, but he hasn’t been nearly as hot as Beltran. The 37-year-old Ortiz is hitting just .200 but does have a .349 OBP and .486 SLG, and he’s still come up big in some key spots, as per usual.

Certainly, Beltran and Ortiz have had all sorts of individual postseason successes, to the point where both come complete with their very own October lore.

Consider their career playoff numbers, laid out in table format:

Clearly, if Major League Baseball were to open up a Hall of Fame for October-only efforts, Beltran and Ortiz would be among the inaugural class of inductees.

Which brings us back to that title question: Would an epic World Series performance from either (or conceivably both) punch their ticket(s) to the H-O-F?

To answer that, we have to, of course, consider their regular-season numbers. After all, aside from maybe 1960 World Series hero Bill Mazeroski, nobody gets into Cooperstown predominantly on their postseason résumé—even ones as spectacular as Beltran’s and Ortiz’s. 

Here are their career numbers from April through September:

The quick-and-dirty assessment is that it’s possible, even likely, that neither Beltran nor Ortiz reach the traditional milestones of 3,000 hits or 500 home runs. Still, both have remained extremely productive into their late 30s and could conceivably have another two or three years to tack onto their current digits.

Beltran’s strongest argument is that he’s been among the best players of his generation for the better part of a decade-and-a-half.

For instance, an All-Star-caliber season is considered by FanGraphs to be worth 4.0-plus WAR (fWAR), and Beltran has reached that standard nine times in his 16-year career. Except because he dealt with various injuries at times, he actually reached the 100-game plateau only 12 times—which means he was an All-Star player virtually every single full season. That has him firmly entrenched in the top five among active players in fWAR.

Beltran, by the way, is one of only eight players in baseball history with at least 300 steals and 300 homers. While three of the members of that group—Bobby Bonds, Reggie Sanders and Steve Finley—come up short in terms of Hall of Fame careers, the other four—Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Alex Rodriguez and Andre Dawson—are all either in or would be were it not for links to performance-enhancing drugs.

Sure, Beltran isn’t quite up to par with each of the latter quartet, but he’s clearly better than the former trio.

And because some like to look at All-Star Games as a way to determine whether a player was, in fact, considered a top performer of his era, and thus Hall-worthy, it should at least be mentioned that Beltran has made eight appearances.

By comparison, Ortiz has nine All-star appearances to his name. Like Beltran, Ortiz also has reached 100 games in 12 seasons, and he’s notched 4.0-plus fWAR four times with two other years where he had 3.8 and 3.9.

That may not be as many as one might expect, but it’s actually rather impressive considering Ortiz gets next to no fWAR credit for defense because he’s been a full-time designated hitter for pretty much his entire career.

Ortiz gets the advantage when it comes to Most Valuable Player voting. He finished in the top five in five straight seasons from 2003 through 2007, with his second-place showing in the AL in 2005 the closest he came to nabbing the hardware.

Beltran, on the other hand, only had two top-10 MVP finishes, with his best outcome in 2006 when he came in fourth in the NL.

Of course, it’s pretty clear that Beltran’s all-around game, including his plus defense in the first half of his career, was severely underrepresented in MVP voting, especially compared to Ortiz, who was arguably the AL’s most dominant hitter in the mid-2000s but also got plenty of support from the RBI-rule community.

The Hall of Fame Decision

So what’s the verdict?

Well, Beltran likely won’t be a first-ballot HOFer, but he should get in within his first few years of eligibility. He’s been too good for too long to keep out, much like Vlad Guerrero, another dominant outfielder whose career overlapped with Beltran’s from the late 1990s and on into this decade.

Like Beltran, Ortiz likely would get in on the merits of his on-field performance. He’s arguably one of the five greatest DHs of all time, right up there with Frank Thomas, Paul Molitor, Jim Thome and Edgar Martinez. Still, he’ll have to face questions about that very DH factor (much like Martinez has), and he’ll also need to overcome an even bigger obstacle—his positive test for PEDs, as reported in 2009. If Ortiz doesn’t make it in, that’s likely to be the reason why.

But putting that aside and focusing purely on production, performance and longevity, Beltran and Ortiz have great cases for Cooperstown already.

Fact is, one more epic effort in the postseason during this World Series isn’t going to be what punches their ticket to the Hall of Fame. While that would only add to their causes and be another feather in their October caps, both Beltran and Ortiz very likely have enough to get in as is. Like, right now.

And yet, they’re still going strong enough to push even closer to that outcome.

A big, fat Fall Classic showing won’t hurt, obviously. But is it necessary? Not likely. Hence the trick part to the question posed above.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

MLB icons can’t evaluate their baseball careers objectively until after retirement, but we sure can. Barring debilitating injuries, scandals or abrupt deterioration of skill, these accomplished individuals will eventually call themselves Hall of Famers.

First-ballot inductees are a very rare breed. Future members of that fraternity were identified as such.

And keep in mind that this sport wouldn’t survive without innovative coaches, umpires and executives. Many were considered for inclusion and, as you’ll read, several are undoubtedly Cooperstown-bound.

This is intended to be an exhaustive list of awesome figures who are actively involved in Major League Baseball or another professional circuit. To satisfy eligibility requirements, players must have totaled at least 10 seasons in the big leagues.

Please comment below if it appears that anybody meeting this criteria was snubbed.

Begin Slideshow

When composing this lineup, there were some selections that caused some second-guessing and hesitation before the final decisions were made—not just whom to include, but where to place them in the field for those who played multiple positions.

There was some internal debate on where to play Ernie Banks on the Chicago Cubs’ All-Time Team.  He played parts of nine seasons at shortstop and 11 at first base, with some time at third base and in the outfield sprinkled in.

The team is ordered as the positions are numbered on the field, except for the outfield positions, with a single starting pitcher to round out the squad.

You may agree or disagree with some, all or none of the selected players, but please enjoy the slideshow and engage in civil debate.

Now, without further ado…

Begin Slideshow

In an era where every player who has Hall of Fame-worthy numbers is scrutinized under the harshest of microscopes, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa have become the steroid era figureheads, examples of what happens when your career is tainted with suspected or proven use of performance-enhancing drugs—but that shouldn’t deny them access to the hallowed grounds of Cooperstown, NY.

The MLB Hall of Fame is an exclusive club, and rightly so. For some fans, it’s the place they take their baseball loving son or daughter to show them the history and legends of the game they love. For others, it’s purpose is to determine the good players from the legends.

Hall of Fame voters shouldn’t punish presumably clean players (Craig Biggio, for one) for playing in an era where steroid use was rampant, simply for not knowing who was clean and who wasn’t. Players who have never failed a test now are often tossed in the category of “they didn’t get caught, but everyone was cheating so they probably were too,” which is a poor, lazy attempt to discard an entire generation of players and their records. 

What needs to be done, if the Hall of Fame is to achieve its former glory and respect for the process, is to find how to deal with the steroid era players. Clean or not, the players from that era obliterated records. Even with normal progression (players over generations have become more and more machine-like (Patrick Willis in the NFL, Albert Pujols in the MLB, etc) and as players become more naturally physically gifted, they will undoubtedly break the records of the players who played cards in the locker room instead of lifting and training. Its been long joked about how Babe Ruth, one of the ten best baseball players ever would down hot dogs during games. I doubt we’d see a player at his peak performance level sneaking a few ballpark dogs in the dugout anymore.

As times change, training, general skill level and a better understanding of the game put today’s players at a better starting point than they ever have had previously. 

To better make the case that players who are elite are just that much better today, look at Bonds’ first 13 seasons (up to the season prior to his 73 home run season). Clearly, Bonds was already a Hall of Famer if he retired mid-season.

1986-1999:
2,010 Hits, 400+ doubles, 445 Home Runs, 1299 RBI, 460 SB and a .288 AVG.

That’s a Hall of Fame résumé if I ever saw one. He went on a historical tear after, ripping 73 HRs into the stands, and breaking the single-season record set by McGwire in the magical 1998 season.

Which brings us to the next man left out of the Hall this year: 1998’s other half, Sosa. 

For all his ups (10 straight seasons of 35 HRs, 100+ RBI, a member of the 500 HR club, an NL MVP and HR Derby Champion in 2000) Sosa’s career has been marred by corked bat incidents, steroid allegations, testimony in front of congress denying his use of PEDs, and his slightly awkward change in skin color leaving some to think that he was trying to look more “white.” Considering the oddities in Sosa’s career, he might not have as strong a case as the other players in this article. His batting average was only .273 and that is including likely steroid influenced years. Bonds’ statistics were outstanding before his use. 

Clemens, too, famously appeared before congress, denying use of PED’s through his illustrious career with the Red Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays and Astros, which began a lengthy legal circus around his testimony. His career is almost unparalleled, and stands up well among the greats in baseball history: 354 Wins, 1.17 WHIP, 3.12 ERA, 4,672 Ks, seven Cy Young Awards and an MVP.

Career numbers like those will continue to be an inconvenient problem for the MLB and the Hall of Fame voters to say no to after a while, once context and perspective can frame the era. Too many pre-steroid era writers and voters refuse to consider the careers of the tainted players, though some were Hall of Fame worthy before their alleged or confirmed usage.

To fix the Hall of Fame’s steroid era problem, there isn’t one quick fix solution. Realistically, time may be the only thing to forward the conversation to a better solution than exclusion. Personally, I’d be OK with a ”steroid era wing” or at least a description of the allegations briefly stated on their plaques in the Hall. For example:

”BARRY LAMAR BONDS
HOME RUN KING, 762 HR
14-TIME ALL STAR
7-TIME MVP
SUSPECTED USE OF STEROIDS MAY HAVE INFLUENCED HIS CAREER NUMBERS.”

This makes a clear statement that while a great player, the integrity of his numbers is to be questioned and his career deserves a closer look than just a look at his stats. This statement could of course be amended per player, if they tested positively or were found to have cheated. 

No solution will be perfect, but much like when the NCAA sanctions a school, it’s not as if that team didn’t exist or no one saw the BCS game they won; and it’s certainly not as if steroid era players who hit more than 60 home runs and seven-time Cy Young award-winning pitchers never happened. They did, and baseball needs to recognize that. This era cannot be swept under the rug, and its records forgotten. If voters cannot agree to the candidacy of steroid tainted players, perhaps they should be replaced by veterans of the game, who may be a better judge to weigh the careers of the accused.

Who closer to the game, more knowledgeable, more trustworthy than former players, to be the key holders to the greatest club in all of sports? A jury of their peers.

When writers reflect back on this past era in baseball, they will note that several of its greats made the Hall of Fame. As for the list of lucky players, it will be up to time, and the voters, to tell us who they’ll be.

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Atlanta Braves fans should be mad that a former player is not getting enough votes to be elected to the Hall of Fame.

However, that player is not Dale Murphy.

While he had good numbers, Murphy’s numbers aren’t worthy of the Hall.

Instead, fans should be looking at the numbers put up by former first baseman Fred McGriff and wonder why he isn’t getting more consideration.

Some writers have called Murphy’s non-election a historic injustice. Really?

We’re not talking about human trafficking or child soldiers in Africa. We’re talking about a baseball hall of fame, which means very little in the grand scheme of things.

While Murphy not getting the call in his 15 years on the ballot is somewhat disappointing for Atlanta fans, what’s a bigger disappointment is the ‘Crime Dog’ hasn’t gotten more than 23.9 percent of the vote.

What’s done is done and Murphy can only hope the Veterans Committee eventually elects him. However, let’s compare McGriff and Murphy and see which player is more deserving.

Dale Murphy

It’s true, Murphy does have two league MVPs and five Gold Gloves to his credit. He batted .265 with 2,111 hits, 398 home runs, 1,266 RBI and scored 1,197 runs.

From 1982-87, Murphy was arguably one of the best players in the game with a .289 average, 218 home runs and 629 RBI. He deserves credit for those six years.

However, a great six years doesn’t make a player worthy of the Hall of Fame.

From 1988-93, Murphy batted .234 with 88 home runs and 339 RBI. That’s not exactly the way to go out in retirement if you want to make it into the Hall of Fame.

Among all center fielders to ever play the game, Murphy’s wins above replacement (42.6) ranks 36th. That’s just among center fielders. His seven best WAR years totaled 39. So, over the course of the 11 other years he played baseball, he had a total WAR rating of 3.6.

Compare that to all center fielders in the Hall of Fame and the average of the seven best WAR years was 42.5, with a career average of 67.1. That’s an average of 24.6 for the 18 center fielders over the rest of their careers.

Murphy was a great player for Atlanta and likely is the reason the Braves still call the city home.

Fred McGriff

McGriff spent five years in Atlanta and his career got off to a fiery start…literally.

Most fans remember the press box catching on fire at the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium on McGriff’s first day in Atlanta.

Over the course of his career, McGriff hit .284 with 493 home runs and 1,550 RBI.

The Crime Dog may have never won an MVP or Gold Glove, but you also have to remember he played in an era where many players were linked to steroids.

His 493 home runs are often overshadowed by what Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Jose Canseco did.

McGriff’s numbers don’t look like much compared to those five mainly because he wasn’t taking steroids. Had he taken steroids, he likely would have had close to 600 home runs over the course of his career.

He had a total WAR of 48.2, with his seven best years totaling 33.2.

Fan-dom

Many fans have distorted opinions because this is an argument pertaining to their hometown guy. A guy that was the face of their franchise.

However, would you think Alan Trammell is worthy of the Hall of Fame? He was the hometown guy for the Detroit Tigers. Many Tiger fans think he’s worthy of Cooperstown, but we all know that he isn’t.

He totaled more hits (2,365), a better average (.285), more runs scored (1,231) and one less Gold Glove.

Or what about Larry Walker, who is the hometown guy for the Colorado Rockies?

He scored 158 runs more runs, had 49 more hits, had 45 more RBI, hit .313 in his career and won seven Gold Gloves.

But he’s not a Hall of Famer. Most Atlanta fans would agree with that.

So why is it a player with numbers less than these two is more worthy of the Hall of Fame?

Does the fact that he played for Atlanta play a role in that thinking for Atlanta fans?

McGriff, on the other hand, surpasses all three in most categories. However, he doesn’t have a hometown base to cry foul because he was traded five times over the course of his career.

The Fan in Me

As a life-long fan of the Braves, I used to side with those who believed Murphy deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. I was blind to the facts because of my passion for a team I grew up loving.

However, once I became a writer, I had to force myself to look at things from an unbiased perspective in anything I wrote. My love for a team could never show through in my writings.

Sitting back, I looked at this issue again and just looked at the numbers. After all, the Hall of Fame is based on numbers for the most part.

Looking at everything from an unbiased point of view, I would be more inclined to think McGriff should get the call before Murphy ever does.

There may be no league MVPs or Gold Gloves to his credit, but McGriff performed better over the course of his career.

If you’re going to be furious about a former Braves player not getting elected to the Hall of Fame, it shouldn’t be over Murphy. It should be over McGriff.

Murphy wasn’t overshadowed by steroid users; McGriff was.

Now tell me which is a bigger shame?

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

For years, we all have known the day was coming when the stars from the steroids era would be on the Hall of Fame ballot. They all should get in. None of them should ever get in. Believing there is one answer that will resolve this problem in a way that makes complete sense is reserved for the Skip Baylesses of the world. The rest of us know this situation is far too complicated and that there is just no easy way to make it right.

There is no option that makes complete sense. More importantly, there is no option that will make anyone feel good about what is going on.

The question then becomes, what do we think is most important?  Preserving the history of the game? The dignity of the game? The respect for those who played before? Is there any way to do that? Will any option successfully address any of those questions?

Is it worse to keep out someone who might have been clean than it is to admit a cheater?

Are there players we think cheated but can say even without steroids, they would have been Hall of Famers? Should that matter?

Let’s take a step back. What happened in baseball? Marginal players took steroids to become good players. Good players to become great. And great to become legendary. We know about a few, there are many we suspect, and there are many, many more out there.

They each took something illegal that was not against the rules, that was not being tested, that those who ran the sport simply did not care about and that those who covered the game could not be bothered to care about (that is until someone un-likeable began to challenge sacred records).

I get why they cheated. It was a risk and to most players, it was worth the risk. Baseball players certainly are not the first group to see a risk/reward situation and decide the reward far outweighs the risk. Right now, if any of us were offered something that would make us better at our jobs and more money, wouldn’t we all take it? And wouldn’t most of us take it even if it were illegal if we thought there was little chance at repercussion?

I am not that far removed from college. How many people in college or grad school or med school or law school took something illegal to help stay awake, to help focus, to help study, in order to get a better grade on an exam?

So, I get it. But just because I get it, and the players are not the only ones to blame, does that mean what happened is ok? Does that mean there should be rewards as if nothing happened? I think no, but those are much more difficult questions to answer than most people that I see talking on TV want to admi

Baseball could have handled this much better. What if baseball several years ago gave its players a limited window to confess to what they did? A one-time get of jail-free card of sorts.

This could have been an attempt to put the steroid era behind us; to know who did what but to also stop the speculation. If a player was truthful, there would be no repercussions and it would not be used against them when it came time to vote for the Hall of Fame, an implicit acknowledgment by those who run baseball that they were as responsible for the steroids era as the players were.

Maybe that never could have worked, for no other reason than those who run baseball never wanted to truly accept any responsibility.

But should that let the players off the hook?

Just because I get why the players took steroids, and I get that we are all responsible for what took place, does that mean they should be in the Hall of Fame?

What if McGwire and Sosa and Bonds and Clemens had been voted in? What do they say during their induction speeches? Would we hear anything they had to say anyway?

I know those players were not the only ones and I know the reality is that most players were probably on something at one time or another.

I also know that steroids were not the first black mark on the history of baseball. For years, white players played only against white players. Had baseball not been segregated, would those same players from that era be in the Hall of Fame?

What about amphetamines? What about cocaine?

All good points.  This may be childish, but two wrongs don’t make a right. Right?

I have no vote (obviously) and will never have one. I don’t think there is a right answer and there definitely is not a good answer. For me though, I originally agreed with the idea expressed by Buster Olney and others, that we don’t know who did what, so we just have to vote everyone in who deserves it on their career alone.

I changed my mind though. I don’t know if I am right, but I don’t know if anyone can be right on this topic.  This isn‘t about either trying to feel superior, or about some notion of “what do I tell my kids?” 

But, being in the Hall of Fame is a tremendous individual accomplishment; there is no greater. Yes, the Hall of Fame is a museum, but the players inducted are inducted as a personal award. The Hall of Fame can have a section on the steroid era and explain it for history’s sake. But we don’t need the individual players being inducted to remember that history.

I understand, too, the argument that we don’t know everyone who was cheating, so it is unfair to punish the few we do know, when most players were likely on something. I don’t think that is reason to vote someone into the Hall of Fame.

Across the country, everyday in criminal courtrooms, people are convicted of crimes. We don’t know everyone who committed robbery, but that doesn’t stop us from convicting someone for robbery. There are even cases where multiple people are suspected of being involved in a single crime; we can convict one even when we don’t know everyone involved.

If I got caught cheating on a test while in college, could I have escaped punishment by telling the Dean I wasn’t the only one cheating? Or by saying, I only cheated that one time on one exam, but even without that exam, I still should pass? I’d probably have been laughed at.

There is no answer that makes me happy. But, I keep coming back to the idea of seeing someone we all know cheated being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Of giving a speech. Of getting a plaque to hang next to Ted Williams, and Hank Aaron, and Willie Mays. Those are images I am just not comfortable with.

Induction is an individual honor that comes with many perks, including financial ones. Those who cheated the game should not get the benefit of any of those perks.

It isn’t to single the few out or to think that keeping them out of the Hall will make me feel better about what happened. It won’t. I understand why they did what they did; I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same. But they did it, they took the chance and they got exposed.

There are consequences.

Returning to the criminal law comparison, when judges sentence defendants, often times there is mitigation that explains why the crime happened, and many times, one might even understand why the person committed the crime in a given situation. But, there are still consequences.

We will never know the full truth. That is one of many shames of what happened in baseball. It doesn’t mean we pretend we know nothing.

Tests or no tests, those who vote for the Hall of Fame were around the game during the steroids era. They each have ideas; they each have eyes and ears.  They each saw things during that time that they likely either didn’t truly realize at the time or that they chose to ignore. They are complicit in what happened as well. But they can’t ignore what they know.

So, if I had a vote, if there was a player that, based on the best information I can put together, took steroids, I don’t think I would ever vote for that player. I get what and why they did it; I don’t even necessarily blame them. I don’t think anything should be taken away, but they should not be given the honor of being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Will some mistakes be made?  Unfortunately, yes. But maybe that is the price to be paid for allowing steroids to have had such an impact on the game of baseball for so long, while all involved acted as if nothing was wrong. All we can do is make the best decisions with the best information we can gather.

The Hall of Fame is about individual achievement, and baseball more than any other sport is about compiling numbers throughout one’s career. Steroids, at their most basic, were about finding a way to add more numbers in one’s career—maybe that meant adding muscle and speed, but often it was just about being able to get on the field quicker and for a longer amount of time.

That is no different than what likely went on before steroids with other substances or what goes on in different sports. But everyone in baseball knew steroids were there and acted otherwise. They all benefited at the time, and now there is nothing that can really be done. However, just because we know why it happened, and just because we know nothing can change the past, does not mean we need to honor those who we believe were involved.

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Dale Murphy has once again been left out of baseball’s Hall of Fame, and this time for the Atlanta Braves great, it’s for keeps.

Or, well, sort of.

A few days have passed since the BBWAA offered its ruling on this year’s MLB Hall of Fame class (or lack thereof).  And in that time, much has been made of the writers’ silent protest against allowing steroid users, alleged or admitted, into baseball’s holy land.  Yet so little has been made of the snub of Murphy in the national media.

This was the 15^th and final try at being elected via the BBWAA ballot for The Murph, who, according to Baseball Reference, hit .265 with 398 home runs over the course of a career that lasted 18 seasons, including 15 in Atlanta.  

And while his career average may not turn many heads, his home run totals are respectable, especially for a former catcher-turned-centerfielder in a time when “offense” and “catcher” were rarely used in the same thread.  Combine that with back-to-back MVP awards in 1982 and 1983, and the Hall of Fame exclusion puts Murphy in rare and historic company.

As it stands now, Murphy is the only player in the history of the game to win multiple National League MVP awards and not earn election into the Hall of Fame.

This, of course, does not include Barry Bonds, who won seven NL MVP awards during his career and still has 14 chances to secure the BBWAA vote.  Bonds earned 36.2 percent of the votes in this, his first year eligible for selection. 

Nor does it include the still-active Albert Pujols, who won three MVP awards while with the St. Louis Cardinals.

But the history stands.  According to Baseball-Reference.com, 29 players have won multiple MVP awards in their careers between both leagues.  Of those, 22 are in Cooperstown.  Of the remaining seven, two are still active (Pujols and Alex Rodriguez), one is still on the ballot (Bonds) and one will be on the ballot for the first time next year (Frank Thomas). 

That leaves Roger Maris, Juan Gonzalez and Murphy as the only three players to win multiple MVP awards in either league and not get voted into the Hall.

For Murphy, though, there is another way to be elected. 

Each year, the Veterans Committee, composed of Hall of Famers, executives and select members of the media, votes on special inductees for the Hall who are no longer eligible for the BBWAA vote. 

According to Baseball-Almanac.com, Hal Newhouser stands as the only current multi-MVP Hall member elected by the Veterans Committee.  Not many have traveled that path, but Murphy seems to be a leading candidate for selection.

Given Murphy’s longtime image as one of baseball’s good guys, it’s astounding that he’s been left out yet again.  In an era which has ceaselessly considered character nearly equal to skills in determining Hall of Famers, one would think for his public persona alone Murphy would be given a significant boost in voting compared to the rest of this year’s class.

But in a disappointing bit of irony, with this year’s vote so focused on keeping the cheaters out, Murphy, founder of the iWontCheat Foundation for children making a pledge against cheating in sports, has been left out and lost among these alleged cheaters.

The Veterans Committee has an opportunity next year to right this wrong, but for now, for whatever reason, and for at least another year, Dale Murphy will remain on the outside of baseball’s greats looking in.

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Five years ago when I was still living in sunny San Diego, I once sat in a bar watching Josh Hamilton hit like 124 home runs in the All-Star Home Run Derby. It was a pretty awesome thing to see, and it ended up keeping me around well after I finished sipping my Vanilla Coke. 

Seated two stools next to me was a man who was unmistakably from Boston. The Patriots tattoo, the missing R’s in his sentences and his insistence that Pedro Martinez did nothing wrong by brawling with 104-year-old man—all easily identifiable characteristics. But the most distinguishable trait of all was his cynical outlook on sports fans in California, and for that matter, the entire west coast. Besides our mutual dislike of AJ Piersynzki and Jon Voight, there wasn‘t a single thing we could agree on, especially on the topic of Barry Bonds and his Hall of Fame candidacy. 

He sneered at my suggestion that Bonds should be a first ballot Hall of Famer, and then nearly round-kicked me when I pointed out his hypocrisy in supporting Bill Belichick all throughout Spygate. His reasoning: Bill’s a good guy who didn’t think there was anything wrong with videotaping the signals of the opposing team, while Barry was a world-class jackass who shot up three times a week so he could turn into a bull shark and steal a bunch of baseball records. 

Yes, that’s right. Bill was such a great guy that he ran up the score, refused to shake hands with coaches at the end of games and made his players play through their own concussions. But I digress.

Anyway, the electorate has apparently agreed with my bar pal (who I haven’t spoken to ever since I refilled his beer glass in the restroom), as Bonds’ and about 20 other guys were blacklisted from baseball’s holiest shrine.  

The only thing that surprised me about the vote was that for the first time, Barry wasn‘t singled out for cheating. 

Just so we’re clear, I’m not one of those sycophants who believes that Barry Bonds is innocent of using performance-enhancing drugs. I know the reason Bonds hit 73 home runs wasn‘t because he suddenly started seeing the ball better (well actually he did, since PEDs improve hand-eye coordination as well as muscle buildup). Barry took steroids. So did hundreds and hundreds of other players, several of whom were also on the same Hall of Fame Ballot. 

Some of them, like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro, won’t EVER get into Cooperstown. 

So what’s the deal? What makes Bonds different from any of the other proven cheaters on this list? Personality? Please. Bonds was only slightly nicer (or more accurately, less loathsome) than most of the other ticks that he finds his name next to on this ballot. He was helluva a lot nicer than Roger Clemens (which is like being a better speaker than Rocky Balboa), a far greater teammate than Sam-Me Sosa and next to Curt Schilling, you could probably make him a star on his own reality charity show. Simply put, Barry was arrogant and unapproachable and believed the sport and the media was still stuck in a 1960s mindset.   

The only thing that set his attitude apart from everyone else was his honesty. If you weren‘t a Giants fan you hated Barry, and that made rooting for him even easier.  Some say he was a guilty pleasure, others say he was just fun to watch.  All I know is there’s something cool about having a guy on your team that could bring out the worst in every stadium across America. 

Barry said it once himself: They wouldn’t boo you if you weren’t any good.

And Barry was good. Very good. 

Good enough to be a first-ballot inductee. He actually punched his ticket to the Hall well before he started taking steroids, back when he was 150-pound leadoff hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates. There he was a two-time MVP and indisputably the best player in the game. He stole 32 bases or more six times, led the league in walks, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS+ in 1992, and finished with 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases twice in 1990 and 1992. 

Then Barry decided to “take his talents” to San Francisco where he won his second straight MVP (and third overall) and became the second player in baseball to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases (though he should have been the first because of a chump named Jose Canseco, more on him later). He led the league in walks four times from 1994 to 1997, and hit more than 34 home runs in seven straight seasons despite an injury-riddled campaign in 1999 where he blew out his elbow trying to pick Charlie Hayes off the ground. 

In 1998, Barry became the first player in the major leagues to hit 400 home runs and steal 400 bases, and no one outside of San Francisco noticed or cared. Thousands of miles away in the Midwest, two juiced-up sluggers were chasing the most sacred record in sports, and Bonds’ achievements became almost as irrelevant as an episode of House. 

Like so many before him (not just athletes, mind you), Barry decided nothing good came out of playing by the rules when no one else around him was doing the same. 

So he cheated. It was the wrong thing to do. 

But man it felt so right.

In 2000, Barry hit a career-high 49 home runs and finished second in MVP voting to teammate Jeff Kent. The next year he broke the single-season home run record and led the majors in on-base percentage, slugging and OPS from 2001-2004. He walked 232 times in 2004 (120 of which were intentional) and had an absurd on-base average of .609. He finished his career as the all-time home runs and walks leader, stole over 500 bases and won eight Gold Gloves. He was intentionally walked 43 times in his final season, sixth all-time behind Willie McCovey, Albert Pujols and himself three times. 

Barry Bonds was the second best player in baseball history, and it’s a safe bet that had he stayed clean, he would have finished somewhere in the top 20.

Not so with Mark McGwire, who began cheating during his early days with the Oakland Athletics when fellow bash brother (let’s call them the “rash brothers”), Jose Canseco, was injecting him with steroids in the bathroom stalls at the Oakland Coliseum. 

There was only one thing McGwire could do in his career, and that was hit home runs. Take away the one thing that was helping him do that (a sleazy Cro-magnon with a mullet and a syringe) and he becomes about as useful as a speedstick in Tony LaRussa’s locker. 

Then we have Sammy Sosa. What is there really to say? America fell for that phony smile until that fateful day in 2003 when his bat splintered and cork spilled out onto the grass. Everyone suddenly saw Sammy for what he was: a lying, sneaky muscle-headed fraud. His career was on the same trajectory as Shawon Dunston until 1998, when he arrived to spring camp looking like he had trained for the UFC. He won the MVP that year and went on to become the first player in major league history to hit 60 home runs in a season three times.  

The best thing you can say about Sosa is that, like Bonds, he managed to perform incredibly when he cheated. But, unlike Barry, who was a Hall of Fame player before he started taking steroids, Sammy wasn’t even good enough replace a squirrel in right field. 

It’s funny how many sportswriters are saying that Bonds and Roger Clemens should have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, but both candidates finished with under 38 percent of the vote. 

So who’s doing all the voting? Surprisingly, people who have absolutely no knowledge of the game. The BBWAA is comprised of writers who haven’t written a word about baseball since the Reagan administration. It wouldn’t surprise me if they thought Joe Theismann was supposed to be on the ballot. Seeing as how no single player reached the required 75 percent of votes for induction, it’s clear that the writers sought to make this less about achievement and more about justice.

Given that Barry Bonds is the chief supervillain in the modern steroid era, it’s likely he won’t make the Hall until the human race abandons currency. 

The Hall of Fame is not a place for activist voters. While integrity shouldn’t be ignored, the attempt to purge an entire generation of players to make a public statement to that effect is ludicrous. We’re not choosing anyone for sainthood here; the point is to celebrate individual glory and Bonds’ achievements (before and after Balco) speak louder to that than anyone over the last quarter century. 

If the voting was really based on character and integrity, Ty Cobb and all the rest of the racists and hooligans would have had their membership revoked 60 years ago. 

The prestige and importance of the game’s highest honor is immediately questioned every time the best players are filibustered because of character concerns, and it may take a big step from the Hall itself to insure that greatness is recognized in its full context. 

Bonds may have disgraced the game with his actions, but he was not the first, nor will he be the last flawed superstar to grace the walls of history. 

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