Barring something truly unexpected like a teary confession from Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera becoming the subject of a startling exposé, Alex Rodriguez will, when he joins the ballot in 2022, become the final strong candidate for baseball’s Hall of Fame to have both made his name in the sport’s doping era and to be…
For the sixth year in a row, baseball’s home run king and a seven-time Cy Young winner have both been refused entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Neither Barry Bonds, the second-greatest hitter of all-time by fWAR, nor Roger Clemens, the best pitcher ever by that same stat, cleared the 75 percent vote threshold …
Dec. 31 is the deadline for BBWAA members to submit their Hall of Fame ballots, and nearly one third of them have already made their ballots public. And here’s a hell of a thing: Probably not this year, but Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens will make the Hall of Fame within a couple of years.
Estimable baseball writer Tim Brown has a column up today that’s either about how Bud Selig’s election to the Hall of Fame shows up the condemnation of players such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens by the likes of the veteran baseball writers who have refused to vote them into the Hall of Fame for the farce that it…
God, it’s “Get worked up about shitty Hall of Fame takes” season again. Every year I go in feeling optimistic—Oh, maybe my guy will get in this year!—and by mid-December I’d rather pull out my fingernails one by one than look at yet another goddamn ballot with two bewildering selections on it.
Roger Clemens and Roy Halladay were teammates for one month, when Halladay was first called up to Toronto as a rookie at the end of 1998. They did not, it seems, become fast friends.
As the Baseball Hall of Fame congratulates itself today, let's talk about how it just boned baseball players. Yesterday, it was announced that the eligibility rules had been altered from 15 years, to 10. So, once he becomes eligible, a player has 10 chances to have the magical 75 percent of precious votes bestowed…
During last night's near-unwatchable Thunder-Nets game, Jeff Van Gundy dropped some interesting news about Tracy McGrady. Apparently McGrady, who recently purchased an interest in an independent team in Biloxi, Mississippi, is considering a second career as a pitcher. According to Van Gundy's sources, McGrady has…
354 wins did not overcome the controversy as this ex-Red Sox pitcher didn't make the Hall of Fame cut in 2013. Who is Mark McGwire? (Trebek snorts mockingly.)
If we can indulge in a brief moment of Welcome Back, Baseball — still early enough in the season, right? — it’s a joy to watch a sport that puts the ball in the hands of the defense. Virtually any other sport you care to name turns a defensive player into an offensive player as soon as he takes possession of the ball.…
Information is still trickling in, but Mindy McCready, who at one time was involved in an affair with Roger Clemens, has reportedly committed suicide. In May 2008, The New York Daily News reported she was involved in a long term affair with Clemens going back to when she was 16 years old. McCready admitted the…
After Roger Clemens threw a large part of a shattered bat at Mike Piazza in Game 2 of the 2000 World Series, the Mets catcher's first instinct was to beat him up. Piazza thought better of it, though, for plenty of reasons: It was the first inning of a game in the World Series; Clemens was half-apologizing; if he…
Hall of fame ballots follow their own own internal logic. For instance, regardless of how they feel about steroids, almost all voters agree with both or neither of the following statements:
I hope everyone is ready for Roger Clemens to make the long, painful transition from controversy-dogged outcast to wizened baseball mentor, because it's going to happen. With two bizarre perjury trials and a flirtation with an MLB cameo in the rearview mirror, Clemens is turning his thoughts to coaching. And the…
Jeff Pearlman has an interview up with Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci, one of the most accomplished baseball writers working. It's long and covers numerous subjects, but it only addresses steroids in two areas: Verducci's groundbreaking 2002 cover story on PEDs in MLB, and whether hindsight makes him view the…
The results for the most recent Baseball Hall of Fame ballot will be revealed on January 9, 2013. As we draw nearer, there will be more and more ballot explanation columns from BBWAA members. Maybe they feel defensive about their choices, maybe guilty.
It's the silly season for baseball, as winter meetings and free agency combine with Hall of Fame debates to take up way too much of our free time. But this year's HOF ballot is especially fascinating—a crop of elite players tied to PED use are eligible for the first time, and will compete with some strong veterans…
After Roger Clemens's first start in the Atlantic League, the Associated Press sent across the wires a photo of him in the middle of his lumpy follow-through, pitching to an out-of-focus batter at the plate. The Hall of Famer, of course, had dropped in to pitch for the Sugar Land Skeeters; his opponents that day were…
We've posted on and on about how Sugar Land Skeeters ace Roger Clemens may be conspiring with the 44-97 Houston Astros to tweak his Hall of Fame chances. Today the Associated Press has given us a bombshell story—bombshell as in, the charred debris that remains after a horrendous event—about the Astros' and Clemens'…
