As that may be true it kind of goes back to my orginal thought.
Doing steroids were a sign of the times. It was frowned upon but not regularly tested for. In fact, no one hardly paid attention to them but players knew what they were and were willing to take that step to have an edge on the competition. In fact, in most cases, I believe it was an accepted practice that colleges all the way to professional management made a choice to turn their heads.
So...because this "steroid era" was rampant, do we bother making issues with these guys? We are all willing to accept that probably a VERY high percentage of players were doing steroids, right?
Unless we keep everyone from the era out, I dont see how any one player should be punished if they arent all punished. Yes, even Raffy. If these were small, individual cases then I could see why everyone would want to turn their backs on these players. Just happens to be we are talking about only the high profile players that have consideration for the HOF.
All the players from this era will have a stigma attatched to them. It's sad because we can be sure there WERE some clean players.
Definately, going forward, if any player gets caught doing steroids he needs to be punished severely. But what to do with the past? Do we have any choice other to accept what the era was?
So let's assume for a minute McGwire was juicing (as is the typical assumption of him as a player). Let's also assume that a vast majority of players were juicing (pitchers included). That to me cancels the benefits of both sides, meaning his numbers are all legitimate.
Either way you want to spin it, he was never found guilty of anything, never failed a drug test - to hold him out of the hall on hearsay and assumption is as wrong as it gets.
I just saw that Sammy Sosa is the "Sunday Conversation" on Sportscenter this week and apparently comments about Mcgwire to some effect...
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I just saw that Sammy Sosa is the "Sunday Conversation" on Sportscenter this week and apparently comments about Mcgwire to some effect...
That's funny, if I recall correctly, Sammy didn't speak English during the Congressional "hearings" on steroid use. Will he be bringing along his interpreter?
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
McGwire gets in before Tony Gwynn? LET ME REPEAT what you said........ "McGwire gets in before Tony Gwynn" ONE MORE TIME TO CLARIFY WHAT YOU SAID..... "McGwire gets in before Tony Gwynn"
Please pass the CRACK PIPE! THANKS! LOL again and again!
I guess my first post was bound to be on this subject. With that being said, here is my biased defense of the man I have immortalized since I was 6. I apologize in advance for the length.
While both sides of the 'did he, didn't he' and 'should he, shouldn't he' make good arguments, I can't help but notice the contradicting arguments of those that agree with each other that he was a 'cheater.'
The very argument that he cheated has been hotly debated and has been made out to be a 'complicated' issue, when in reality it is really quite simple. Cheating is breaking the rules. Not breaking the laws of the United States, but the rules of which he and all players were required to play by. Not one person can provide a rule in which McGwire has or had broken while playing baseball. Same with the players popping amphetamines for that matter. I would hope that any person even making these statements about Mark must hold the same opinion of all the players of the 'amphetamine era', as well as the multitude of other players that have broken the law, gotten caught, and are still in the HOF. I feel that the majority of the people that have the 'he cheated' and/or 'he shouldn't get in the HOF' have a favorite player that is indeed in this 'greenie' period of baseball. Saying that he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame because he cheated can only be from a biased and/or an emotional opinion based on the appreciation of statistical numbers that are so revered in this game. Maybe their reasoning is the uneasiness that accompanies the fact their player continually is sliding down the rungs of Greatest Baseball Players of all time.
Before I get into the steroid side of my opinion, let me just state that Mark McGwire DID take steroids. It is impossible to believe or say otherwise. The only disagreements must be whether he injected steroids, and when he started taking them. We all know that he took androstenedione (which he has admitted), which at the time was sold over the counter (and NOT banned by MLB, or illegal in the US). This is the only reason we can say he definitely took steroids, because andro was later classified as such after further research in 2004. There is no evidence he has taken any steroids other than andro. Those that feel Mcgwire shouldn’t be in the HOF because of taking steroids often adjust their reasoning to fit the believed effects of taking steroids, which are often flawed at best. We’ve heard either ‘steroids kept him healthy’ thereby letting his numbers ‘inflate’ by actually playing, or his ‘getting hurt’ were the signs of his steroid use. The ‘healthy’ argument should flatly be ignored, as the ignorance of the commenting person clearly knows nothing about steroids and has done absolutely no research, and if that statement were even remotely true, I fail to see how being able to play roughly the same amount of games as your peers equates to an advantage. Anybody with any knowledge on the subject knows that using steroids severely affects the body negatively with the accompanying added muscle gains and strength. If his numbers of 1998 and 1999 and the two half seasons of 2000 and 2001 are thought to be the result of steroid use, and in turn leading to an unfair advantage, then take those homerun numbers totaled and divide by 4, and you will see it averages below the same numbers he put up the two seasons before 1998, widely thought to be pre-steroid seasons. So even the huge numbers of those seasons evened out with the negative effects of taking steroids, the 2 lost half seasons.
While some believe Mr. Cansecos book where he states him and Mark did steroids together, they must not have been a fan of McGwire’s before they jumped on his homerun-hitting bandwagon of 1998. If they were, then they would know it was no secret that Mark and Jose were not friends, instead just teammates. There have been many instances of others players, offering no opinion on the steroid issue, have stated this. I believe Jose to be lying, and included in his book because he, being a steroid user, could correctly identify Mark’s physical change as those being steroid use. Many educated fans of McGwire (the ones that believe he did take steroids) believe he started using in 1998 and the first point they usually bring up is the body difference from 1987 and 1998. Yes, there is no doubt that those two men are physically differing from each other, but they do share something between them: 30+ homeruns before the All-star break. 33 in 1987 at 215 pounds, and 37 in 1998 at 250 pounds. The similarity between the two homerun numbers gets unjustly ignored while the difference in the weight gets heavily pointed out as 'evidence' of cheating and steroid use. If the argument is he changed his body to balloon his statistics, then both of these numbers (production and physical appearance) for each year should differ from each other considerably and should favor one opinion or the other, not be directly contradicting. Even the ‘unfair advantage’ theory doesn’t hold water, since the majority of the players in the same era are suspected of using steroids, thereby erasing the ‘advantage’ that Mac supposedly had. MLB as a whole had pitchers on steroids throwing to hitters on steroids, creating a common denominator on how to judge the greatness of these players versus each other: their statistics, which clearly Mark is in the upper echelon, warranting inclusion into the Hall.
Another point some have tried to make is he fails to qualify for the prerequisite of ‘sound character,’ listed as a factor into gaining entry into the HOF. This would be an absurd statement before the Congressional hearing took place. Being a collector of everything McGwire related, I will save myself the time of pulling out hundreds upon hundreds of magazine articles and newspaper clippings containing countless examples of his class, kindness, and overall ‘nice-guy’ persona. . I admit he didn’t make himself look innocent by his responses that day, but we will never know why he chose to answer the way he did. Knowing his character first hand, it just as much, if not more, could have been the best way to make sure he didn’t hurt others reputations, not his own. By refusing to answer any questions, he never gets to the point of having to answer who knew he took them, who else took them, and who knew about others taking them. That would be more consistent with every other personal trait he’s shown us outside of baseball.
One dimensional player? Must be the only one with a gold glove. I won’t even begin his list of statistical achievements, records held, or top-ten lists. I believe we all know that’s not the true nature of this discussion anyways.
I will be there when he gets in, be it this year, next year, or a couple years down the road.
McGuire and Raffy should both make the Hall-They does something no one else in baseball ever did.......
.............They gave Jose Canseco credibility
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Man they need to put Mcgwire in - pretty soon it's going to be hard to take my child to the hall of fame. She'll be asking where the best hitters are, and I'll have to waste half an hour talking about how great Pete Rose is, and then when we go to home run hitters I'll have to explain for another half an hour why McGwire and Bonds aren't in even though they saved baseball and were INCREDIBLE before steroids were even against the game laws. But when I go to the football hall of fame - heck there is far worse there. They could always bring in a steroid user like McGwire tied to bringing in a player that balances out the character but didn't have a full career - so like bring in McGwire bring in Mattingly to balance him out. Bring in Bonds then you bring in Bo Jackson to balance him out and so on and so forth. Or an easier solution is to put a seperate wing for steroid users and players that sacrificed character while being the best - that would be the most visited wing in the joint!
Well, 13 years later and no Mark McGwire in the HOF. He is off the HOF Ballot and on the Veterans Committe Ballot.
His baseball cards are priced as if he is in the HOF. He still has a strong fan base. Its a shame he is tied to the steroid controversy, but it is not unjustified. Now that he admitted to using them a few years ago, some healing can start.
"So many of our DREAMS at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we SUMMON THE WILL they soon become INEVITABLE "- Christopher Reeve
this was a very interesting read. It predates my time here so it is new for me. I think the most interesting thing would be to hear Axtellś views on the subject now that Mcgwire has admitted to steroid use. I wonder why Axtell got banned? I was looking at his numbers and he put up over 10,000 posts in just two years. that must be a record.
I remember Axtell well, but do not know the exact reasons for his ban. He was a prickly character that would get into debates with the other members. Sometimes it would cause "flame wars" that would drag on and on. This is why he has thousands of postings.
I, personally, stay out of such things and have been on the message board off and on for quite some as you can see. There is a wealth of knowledge here and many times I tapped into it and made my collecting journey all the more enjoyable.
Going back to McGwire, when he testified in front of Congress to basically keep his silence, I knew there would be a steroid scandal waiting to be uncovered. It was a more honest response than the Sammy Sosa not knowing the English language or Rafael Palmeiro wagging his finger denying any steroid use only to be caught later.
I feel that everyone should be subject to the law equally. Our society will be more harmed in deviating from that than having one less first baseman or outfielder in the HOF. This also relates to the college admissions scandal that is current, which was perpetrated by celebrities and wealthy people. Should they get a pass just because they are famous or wealthy?
We need a certain standard on how to deal with players of the steroid era and stick to it.
"So many of our DREAMS at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we SUMMON THE WILL they soon become INEVITABLE "- Christopher Reeve
As far as my recollection of McGwire goes, he was very very good when he first came up in the mid 80's. Both he and Canseco were big men who could hit the ball a mile. On top of that, McGwire was an above average first baseman, so in my mind, the "one trick pony" argument does not apply. He hit almost 50 HR in his first full year; was he juicing then??? I certainly don't know. He was clearly a well above average player who may or may not have reached the 500 HR mark in his career, and that 500 mark was the barometer for HOF election. I think he belongs. Like several have mentioned, the people he played against may have also been on the juice. I think he eventually gets elected, no way on the first ballot....just too much baggage. He was a player who demanded your attention and whether or not he played for your home team, you stopped what you were doing to watch his AB's if he was on the tube.
I remember Axtell well, but do not know the exact reasons for his ban. He was a prickly character that would get into debates with the other members. Sometimes it would cause "flame wars" that would drag on and on. This is why he has thousands of postings.
I, personally, stay out of such things and have been on the message board off and on for quite some as you can see. There is a wealth of knowledge here and many times I tapped into it and made my collecting journey all the more enjoyable.
Going back to McGwire, when he testified in front of Congress to basically keep his silence, I knew there would be a steroid scandal waiting to be uncovered. It was a more honest response than the Sammy Sosa not knowing the English language or Rafael Palmeiro wagging his finger denying any steroid use only to be caught later.
I feel that everyone should be subject to the law equally. Our society will be more harmed in deviating from that than having one less first baseman or outfielder in the HOF. This also relates to the college admissions scandal that is current, which was perpetrated by celebrities and wealthy people. Should they get a pass just because they are famous or wealthy?
We need a certain standard on how to deal with players of the steroid era and stick to it.
Ax is back
m
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@stevek said:
He definitely won't get in on the first ballot. Why? Because it makes for a better media story so that fans buy more newspapers to read about how McGwire didn't get in, and then the newspapers make more money, therefore the sportswriters can make more money.
But of course he'll eventually get in the Hall, there's no question about that - likely in one or two years.
Total airball
m
Walker Proof Digital Album Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
gone again. he has been uncharacteristically silent as of late, so i searched for his latest signs of life. nada. all posts gone, including the conspicuous re-emergence thread. in hindsight, probably not the wisest of moves. quietly blending back in under a different alias was the way to go. but that's not his style.
he's basically been blackballed. i can honestly say that the last two times he's been jettisoned it hasn't been warranted. it's a product of past sins, unfortunately. i was hoping amnesty would be granted, cuz he'd be great for this place. someone could create an underwater basket weaving thread and the dude would take time to opine. just a little too rambunctious & abrasive at times.
and mind you, all of this coming from someone who used to despise the guy. but over time, i actually found myself warming up to what he brought to the table. oh well. c'est la vie.
I don't know if we met, but I see you were on these boards the last 7 years and encountered the legendary Axtell during that time. I have not run into him during that time span and I know its because I have been off for quite a few years except for the occasional check in. I knew him back much further... he can be abrasive (good adjective there).
In any case, I don't want to hijack the thread of its main topic, but it would be interesting if he and the others changed their view of McGwire or not.
Good to meet you and thanks to you and justacommeman for chiming in.
"So many of our DREAMS at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we SUMMON THE WILL they soon become INEVITABLE "- Christopher Reeve
Axtell’s sole purpose was to argue with people. Period. He would start off on a topic and home in on someone’s post and twist it into a total argument, he was extremely abrasive to nearly everyone and most of the time it was for no reason. He would literally argue anything without ever being able to be reasoned with, regardless if he was wrong. The other guy that people forget about was Joestalin, he was an instigator as well but had a humorous flavor to his actions.
as far as being a one trick pony, I would have to disagree. Mcgwire was an on base machine. Earlier in the thread people scoffed at Mcgwire being mentioned with tony gwynn. Mcgwire actually had a higher OB than tony. going strait by the numbers, mcgwire was a better offensive player. higher OB, SLG, OBP+, WAR. the only thing he didnt do as well was hit singles.
@JRR300 said:
As far as my recollection of McGwire goes, he was very very good when he first came up in the mid 80's. Both he and Canseco were big men who could hit the ball a mile. On top of that, McGwire was an above average first baseman, so in my mind, the "one trick pony" argument does not apply. He hit almost 50 HR in his first full year; was he juicing then??? I certainly don't know. He was clearly a well above average player who may or may not have reached the 500 HR mark in his career, and that 500 mark was the barometer for HOF election. I think he belongs. Like several have mentioned, the people he played against may have also been on the juice. I think he eventually gets elected, no way on the first ballot....just too much baggage. He was a player who demanded your attention and whether or not he played for your home team, you stopped what you were doing to watch his AB's if he was on the tube.
Here's what the numbers say;
1987 GREAT rookie season. Great SLG GREAT OPS.
1988 OPS drops 157 points, SLG still good, but below .500. Similar times AB but every category shows a drop.
1989 Plays in a few less games, OPS and SLG drops again.
1990 Looking a bit better, learns to take some pitches and walks over 100 times SLG still under .500, wins a GG.
1991 Not sure if he was hurt, but this is a POOR year! (OPS+ still says he was above average?) .714 OPS and .383 SLG.
Here's five full seasons, he averages 35 HR a year, 487 SLG and .839 OPS. .487 is NOT an impressive SLG for a slugger.
Other than a rise in 1990 his career seems (to me) to be dropping, or at the very least leveling off. Still a good HR guy, but averaging a little over 30 HR after his great rookie season.
1992 Nice "comeback" season leads league in SLG and one of only two guys to hit over 40 HR
1993 Basically missed the entire season
1994 Same as the year before
1995 Appears in 104 games and (steroids?) for the first time is over 1.000 OPS. CRUSHES it by achieving 1.125. That would have led the league had he played enough games.
1996 WOW! SLG of .685 highest of his career. BA is .111 better than 1991. 52 HR in 130 games!
Here he is at 10 years in and he is averaging 32 1/2 home runs per year. OPS numbers are inconclusive because of the two "missed" years, but looks to be in the mid 800's, again good , but not great.
The next three years he averages 64 home runs a year! Almost exactly DOUBLE what he has hit per year so far. Granted he had a couple of years where he was injured.
Now that he has admitted to using steroids, we see what they can do for a guys production.
You could certainly speculate that McGwire had a good shot at hitting 500 HR, but after 10 years of results, he was looking at the LOW 500's at best. IF IF IF he would have played "clean". Most likely he would have had a couple of "old man" years and could have easily fallen short of the 500 number.
He may have played well at 1B, but that's the easiest defensive position on the field.
I think "one trick pony" applies, but I don't look at it as that much of a criticism. If your "one trick" is hitting HR, how bad can that be?
Bottom line for me is, he was no where near the player who's numbers appear in the books and he should NEVER be in the HOF.
Too bad, he had a shot until he decided to cheat. And amphetamines wouldn't have changed his numbers that drastically so let's (please) not go there.
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@stevek said:
He definitely won't get in on the first ballot. Why? Because it makes for a better media story so that fans buy more newspapers to read about how McGwire didn't get in, and then the newspapers make more money, therefore the sportswriters can make more money.
But of course he'll eventually get in the Hall, there's no question about that - likely in one or two years.
Total airball
m
Yea, good old Mark, a "Monday morning quarterback" genius. LOL
I don't know if we met, but I see you were on these boards the last 7 years and encountered the legendary Axtell during that time. I have not run into him during that time span and I know its because I have been off for quite a few years except for the occasional check in. I knew him back much further... he can be abrasive (good adjective there).
In any case, I don't want to hijack the thread of its main topic, but it would be interesting if he and the others changed their view of McGwire or not.
Good to meet you and thanks to you and justacommeman for chiming in.
look forward to reading more of your contributions around these parts
since this Lazarus McGwire thread has been unearthed, i'll toss in a personal story. i know, i know. tl;dr. but for those who gut it out, i'll do my very best to make it worth your while.
back in the Spring of '98, one of my best amigos from college contacted me to see if i'd be interested in going to St. Louis to catch a handful of games at some point during the season. reason being, he was/still is a diehard Cards fan. at the time i followed baseball religiously, so i was in like flynn. a couple of other college buddies decided to go as well.
it was April when we started looking at a calendar, so the season itself was in its infancy. we settled on Labor Day weekend, which would allow us to see four STL games -- Sept 4-6 against the Reds, and Sept 7 against the Cubs (Labor Day). our plans were to take one extra day off to fly back to Texas, on the 8th.
by now you should know where i'm going with this.
long story just a little less long, it was an unbelievable stroke of luck. all hell broke loose that summer, and by the time we reached St. Louis the entire city was buzzing. we could not believe our little trip had the real chance of coinciding with history, and there was no place we would have rather been.
Friday, Sept 4 -- Reds beat the Cardinals 3-2. no HR from Big Mac. still at 59.
Saturday, Sept 5 -- Cardinals beat the Reds 7-0. McGwire launched a cloud-scraper for #60. at this point things were getting very serious, because we now knew that we had two shots to see him tie or break Maris's record.
Sunday, Sept 6 -- St. Louis beat Cincinnati 5-2. no ding dong from Mac, which was a real bummer. but the consolation prize for my buddy who coordinated the trip was the fact that a) STL won again, and b) Ray Lankford (his fav player) hit a tater instead. more on him later.
Monday, Sept 7 -- STL beat Cincy 6-3, but the outcome turned out to be peripheral. when we originally made our plans months earlier, we decided to splurge for this particular game. last one of the trip, so let's open our wallets. if memory serves, we paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $75 apiece to sit a few rows behind the Cardinals dugout. remember, these were earliest-part-of-the-season-in-1998 prices. well, one vivid memory i have is a scalper surreptitiously confronting me in the hotel lobby the morning of the game and offering $1500 for my ticket. that amount is nothing to sneeze at now, make no mistake about it, but back then it was an extremely tidy sum -- especially when you take into consideration that i was just a few years removed from college. but there was less than zero chance of me selling mine, and the same held true for my three compadres. we wanted to be there to witness history in those killer seats, and no amount of money could sway us.
and it happened. Big Mac ripped one off of Mike Morgan and #61 was in the books. the most surreal sports moment of my life, by a very healthy margin. i'll never forget it. i'll also never forget McGwire yanking one foul later in the game, otherwise #62 would have gone down as well. no doubt i would have been in dire need of resuscitation had that happened. surrealism overload!
believe it or not, all four of us contemplated taking yet another day off from work just to stick around and see the Tuesday game against the Cubs. we knew what was going to happen. and sure enough, it did. but we collectively had to get back to Texas, thus we missed #62 off of Trachsel. no regrets there.
back to Ray Lankford as i wrap this up. kind of a funny story looking back. so, my buddy had a borderline unhealthy bromance with RL, and during that trip he took it one step too far. i can't recall which game it was -- i believe it was the 2nd or 3rd we saw -- but the Cardinals had a promotion called "Shirt off my back," or something similar. they sold raffle tickets at a buck apiece and if you were extremely lucky, the name of a Cardinals player was unveiled once you were finished scratching. if you were so fortunate, you then made your way down to the field and said player would remove his game-used jersey and put it on you for the entire stadium to see.
well, my friend supposedly left to go to the bathroom prior to the game. when he returned, my eyeballs almost yo-yo'd out of their sockets when i saw the colossal bag of tickets he was cradling. and yes, this convo is verbatim because it's something you can't possibly forget.
"what the **** is that???"
"doesn't matter what this is."
"i seriously can't believe this. just how much did you spend???"
"doesn't matter how much i spent. know why? because i know Ray is in here."
well, turns out Ray was not in there, and neither was any other Cardinals player. 🤣 $500 -- that's right, $500 -- down the tubes. in my entire lifetime i don't think i've scratched my own ass as much as he scratched the next couple of hours. then of course there was the obligatory homicidal stare toward the guy whose shoulders were on the receiving end of Ray's jersey. lol
as this story pertains to the topic at hand, i don't feel duped over 20 years later. it's an indelible memory etched in my brain. had i been a little bit smarter at the time, i would've been able to put 2 & 2 together. him practically pumping balls out of the park on a nightly basis leading up to the record should have triggered tornado sirens, but i didn't think much of it other than a Paul Bunyan-esque pro athlete performing an otherworldly act on a consistent basis. that's exactly what i yearned for as a fan of -- at the time -- baseball.
i'm not even sure the sport would have recovered had it not been for all of the rampant cheating going on. heck, maybe it hasn't, because a little over 20 years later and i can't name five players on any roster outside of the Astros'.
Comments
Doing steroids were a sign of the times. It was frowned upon but not regularly tested for. In fact, no one hardly paid attention to them but players knew what they were and were willing to take that step to have an edge on the competition. In fact, in most cases, I believe it was an accepted practice that colleges all the way to professional management made a choice to turn their heads.
So...because this "steroid era" was rampant, do we bother making issues with these guys? We are all willing to accept that probably a VERY high percentage of players were doing steroids, right?
Unless we keep everyone from the era out, I dont see how any one player should be punished if they arent all punished. Yes, even Raffy. If these were small, individual cases then I could see why everyone would want to turn their backs on these players. Just happens to be we are talking about only the high profile players that have consideration for the HOF.
All the players from this era will have a stigma attatched to them. It's sad because we can be sure there WERE some clean players.
Definately, going forward, if any player gets caught doing steroids he needs to be punished severely. But what to do with the past? Do we have any choice other to accept what the era was?
Let's also assume that a vast majority of players were juicing (pitchers included).
That to me cancels the benefits of both sides, meaning his numbers are all legitimate.
Either way you want to spin it, he was never found guilty of anything, never failed a drug test - to hold him out of the hall on hearsay and assumption is as wrong as it gets.
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That's funny, if I recall correctly, Sammy didn't speak English during the Congressional "hearings" on steroid use. Will he be bringing along his interpreter?
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
briannirvana....................
McGwire gets in before Tony Gwynn?
LET ME REPEAT what you said........
"McGwire gets in before Tony Gwynn"
ONE MORE TIME TO CLARIFY WHAT YOU SAID.....
"McGwire gets in before Tony Gwynn"
Please pass the CRACK PIPE! THANKS! LOL again and again!
While both sides of the 'did he, didn't he' and 'should he, shouldn't he' make good arguments, I can't help but notice the contradicting arguments of those that agree with each other that he was a 'cheater.'
The very argument that he cheated has been hotly debated and has been made out to be a 'complicated' issue, when in reality it is really quite simple. Cheating is breaking the rules. Not breaking the laws of the United States, but the rules of which he and all players were required to play by. Not one person can provide a rule in which McGwire has or had broken while playing baseball. Same with the players popping amphetamines for that matter. I would hope that any person even making these statements about Mark must hold the same opinion of all the players of the 'amphetamine era', as well as the multitude of other players that have broken the law, gotten caught, and are still in the HOF. I feel that the majority of the people that have the 'he cheated' and/or 'he shouldn't get in the HOF' have a favorite player that is indeed in this 'greenie' period of baseball. Saying that he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame because he cheated can only be from a biased and/or an emotional opinion based on the appreciation of statistical numbers that are so revered in this game. Maybe their reasoning is the uneasiness that accompanies the fact their player continually is sliding down the rungs of Greatest Baseball Players of all time.
Before I get into the steroid side of my opinion, let me just state that Mark McGwire DID take steroids. It is impossible to believe or say otherwise. The only disagreements must be whether he injected steroids, and when he started taking them. We all know that he took androstenedione (which he has admitted), which at the time was sold over the counter (and NOT banned by MLB, or illegal in the US). This is the only reason we can say he definitely took steroids, because andro was later classified as such after further research in 2004. There is no evidence he has taken any steroids other than andro. Those that feel Mcgwire shouldn’t be in the HOF because of taking steroids often adjust their reasoning to fit the believed effects of taking steroids, which are often flawed at best. We’ve heard either ‘steroids kept him healthy’ thereby letting his numbers ‘inflate’ by actually playing, or his ‘getting hurt’ were the signs of his steroid use. The ‘healthy’ argument should flatly be ignored, as the ignorance of the commenting person clearly knows nothing about steroids and has done absolutely no research, and if that statement were even remotely true, I fail to see how being able to play roughly the same amount of games as your peers equates to an advantage. Anybody with any knowledge on the subject knows that using steroids severely affects the body negatively with the accompanying added muscle gains and strength. If his numbers of 1998 and 1999 and the two half seasons of 2000 and 2001 are thought to be the result of steroid use, and in turn leading to an unfair advantage, then take those homerun numbers totaled and divide by 4, and you will see it averages below the same numbers he put up the two seasons before 1998, widely thought to be pre-steroid seasons. So even the huge numbers of those seasons evened out with the negative effects of taking steroids, the 2 lost half seasons.
While some believe Mr. Cansecos book where he states him and Mark did steroids together, they must not have been a fan of McGwire’s before they jumped on his homerun-hitting bandwagon of 1998. If they were, then they would know it was no secret that Mark and Jose were not friends, instead just teammates. There have been many instances of others players, offering no opinion on the steroid issue, have stated this. I believe Jose to be lying, and included in his book because he, being a steroid user, could correctly identify Mark’s physical change as those being steroid use. Many educated fans of McGwire (the ones that believe he did take steroids) believe he started using in 1998 and the first point they usually bring up is the body difference from 1987 and 1998. Yes, there is no doubt that those two men are physically differing from each other, but they do share something between them: 30+ homeruns before the All-star break. 33 in 1987 at 215 pounds, and 37 in 1998 at 250 pounds. The similarity between the two homerun numbers gets unjustly ignored while the difference in the weight gets heavily pointed out as 'evidence' of cheating and steroid use. If the argument is he changed his body to balloon his statistics, then both of these numbers (production and physical appearance) for each year should differ from each other considerably and should favor one opinion or the other, not be directly contradicting. Even the ‘unfair advantage’ theory doesn’t hold water, since the majority of the players in the same era are suspected of using steroids, thereby erasing the ‘advantage’ that Mac supposedly had. MLB as a whole had pitchers on steroids throwing to hitters on steroids, creating a common denominator on how to judge the greatness of these players versus each other: their statistics, which clearly Mark is in the upper echelon, warranting inclusion into the Hall.
Another point some have tried to make is he fails to qualify for the prerequisite of ‘sound character,’ listed as a factor into gaining entry into the HOF. This would be an absurd statement before the Congressional hearing took place. Being a collector of everything McGwire related, I will save myself the time of pulling out hundreds upon hundreds of magazine articles and newspaper clippings containing countless examples of his class, kindness, and overall ‘nice-guy’ persona. . I admit he didn’t make himself look innocent by his responses that day, but we will never know why he chose to answer the way he did. Knowing his character first hand, it just as much, if not more, could have been the best way to make sure he didn’t hurt others reputations, not his own. By refusing to answer any questions, he never gets to the point of having to answer who knew he took them, who else took them, and who knew about others taking them. That would be more consistent with every other personal trait he’s shown us outside of baseball.
One dimensional player? Must be the only one with a gold glove. I won’t even begin his list of statistical achievements, records held, or top-ten lists. I believe we all know that’s not the true nature of this discussion anyways.
I will be there when he gets in, be it this year, next year, or a couple years down the road.
.............They gave Jose Canseco credibility
Putting together a set of 61 Fleer Basketball PSA 7 or better.
Trade references: T,Raf12,Coach Vinny,Iceman,McDee2,Lantz,JSA
But when I go to the football hall of fame - heck there is far worse there.
They could always bring in a steroid user like McGwire tied to bringing in a player that balances out the character but didn't have a full career - so like bring in McGwire bring in Mattingly to balance him out. Bring in Bonds then you bring in Bo Jackson to balance him out and so on and so forth.
Or an easier solution is to put a seperate wing for steroid users and players that sacrificed character while being the best - that would be the most visited wing in the joint!
Well, 13 years later and no Mark McGwire in the HOF. He is off the HOF Ballot and on the Veterans Committe Ballot.
His baseball cards are priced as if he is in the HOF. He still has a strong fan base. Its a shame he is tied to the steroid controversy, but it is not unjustified. Now that he admitted to using them a few years ago, some healing can start.
BST: Tennessebanker, Downtown1974, LarkinCollector, nendee
I still remember the McGwire/Sosa HR chase back in ‘98. That was a lot of fun checking Sportscenter for updates nearly every day.
this was a very interesting read. It predates my time here so it is new for me. I think the most interesting thing would be to hear Axtellś views on the subject now that Mcgwire has admitted to steroid use. I wonder why Axtell got banned? I was looking at his numbers and he put up over 10,000 posts in just two years. that must be a record.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Hello Craig44,
I remember Axtell well, but do not know the exact reasons for his ban. He was a prickly character that would get into debates with the other members. Sometimes it would cause "flame wars" that would drag on and on. This is why he has thousands of postings.
I, personally, stay out of such things and have been on the message board off and on for quite some as you can see. There is a wealth of knowledge here and many times I tapped into it and made my collecting journey all the more enjoyable.
Going back to McGwire, when he testified in front of Congress to basically keep his silence, I knew there would be a steroid scandal waiting to be uncovered. It was a more honest response than the Sammy Sosa not knowing the English language or Rafael Palmeiro wagging his finger denying any steroid use only to be caught later.
I feel that everyone should be subject to the law equally. Our society will be more harmed in deviating from that than having one less first baseman or outfielder in the HOF. This also relates to the college admissions scandal that is current, which was perpetrated by celebrities and wealthy people. Should they get a pass just because they are famous or wealthy?
We need a certain standard on how to deal with players of the steroid era and stick to it.
BST: Tennessebanker, Downtown1974, LarkinCollector, nendee
As far as my recollection of McGwire goes, he was very very good when he first came up in the mid 80's. Both he and Canseco were big men who could hit the ball a mile. On top of that, McGwire was an above average first baseman, so in my mind, the "one trick pony" argument does not apply. He hit almost 50 HR in his first full year; was he juicing then??? I certainly don't know. He was clearly a well above average player who may or may not have reached the 500 HR mark in his career, and that 500 mark was the barometer for HOF election. I think he belongs. Like several have mentioned, the people he played against may have also been on the juice. I think he eventually gets elected, no way on the first ballot....just too much baggage. He was a player who demanded your attention and whether or not he played for your home team, you stopped what you were doing to watch his AB's if he was on the tube.
Ax is back
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Total airball
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
gone again. he has been uncharacteristically silent as of late, so i searched for his latest signs of life. nada. all posts gone, including the conspicuous re-emergence thread. in hindsight, probably not the wisest of moves. quietly blending back in under a different alias was the way to go. but that's not his style.
he's basically been blackballed. i can honestly say that the last two times he's been jettisoned it hasn't been warranted. it's a product of past sins, unfortunately. i was hoping amnesty would be granted, cuz he'd be great for this place. someone could create an underwater basket weaving thread and the dude would take time to opine. just a little too rambunctious & abrasive at times.
and mind you, all of this coming from someone who used to despise the guy. but over time, i actually found myself warming up to what he brought to the table. oh well. c'est la vie.
Galaxy27,
I don't know if we met, but I see you were on these boards the last 7 years and encountered the legendary Axtell during that time. I have not run into him during that time span and I know its because I have been off for quite a few years except for the occasional check in. I knew him back much further... he can be abrasive (good adjective there).
In any case, I don't want to hijack the thread of its main topic, but it would be interesting if he and the others changed their view of McGwire or not.
Good to meet you and thanks to you and justacommeman for chiming in.
BST: Tennessebanker, Downtown1974, LarkinCollector, nendee
Axtell’s sole purpose was to argue with people. Period. He would start off on a topic and home in on someone’s post and twist it into a total argument, he was extremely abrasive to nearly everyone and most of the time it was for no reason. He would literally argue anything without ever being able to be reasoned with, regardless if he was wrong. The other guy that people forget about was Joestalin, he was an instigator as well but had a humorous flavor to his actions.
as far as being a one trick pony, I would have to disagree. Mcgwire was an on base machine. Earlier in the thread people scoffed at Mcgwire being mentioned with tony gwynn. Mcgwire actually had a higher OB than tony. going strait by the numbers, mcgwire was a better offensive player. higher OB, SLG, OBP+, WAR. the only thing he didnt do as well was hit singles.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Here's what the numbers say;
1987 GREAT rookie season. Great SLG GREAT OPS.
1988 OPS drops 157 points, SLG still good, but below .500. Similar times AB but every category shows a drop.
1989 Plays in a few less games, OPS and SLG drops again.
1990 Looking a bit better, learns to take some pitches and walks over 100 times SLG still under .500, wins a GG.
1991 Not sure if he was hurt, but this is a POOR year! (OPS+ still says he was above average?) .714 OPS and .383 SLG.
Here's five full seasons, he averages 35 HR a year, 487 SLG and .839 OPS. .487 is NOT an impressive SLG for a slugger.
Other than a rise in 1990 his career seems (to me) to be dropping, or at the very least leveling off. Still a good HR guy, but averaging a little over 30 HR after his great rookie season.
1992 Nice "comeback" season leads league in SLG and one of only two guys to hit over 40 HR
1993 Basically missed the entire season
1994 Same as the year before
1995 Appears in 104 games and (steroids?) for the first time is over 1.000 OPS. CRUSHES it by achieving 1.125. That would have led the league had he played enough games.
1996 WOW! SLG of .685 highest of his career. BA is .111 better than 1991. 52 HR in 130 games!
Here he is at 10 years in and he is averaging 32 1/2 home runs per year. OPS numbers are inconclusive because of the two "missed" years, but looks to be in the mid 800's, again good , but not great.
The next three years he averages 64 home runs a year! Almost exactly DOUBLE what he has hit per year so far. Granted he had a couple of years where he was injured.
Now that he has admitted to using steroids, we see what they can do for a guys production.
You could certainly speculate that McGwire had a good shot at hitting 500 HR, but after 10 years of results, he was looking at the LOW 500's at best. IF IF IF he would have played "clean". Most likely he would have had a couple of "old man" years and could have easily fallen short of the 500 number.
He may have played well at 1B, but that's the easiest defensive position on the field.
I think "one trick pony" applies, but I don't look at it as that much of a criticism. If your "one trick" is hitting HR, how bad can that be?
Bottom line for me is, he was no where near the player who's numbers appear in the books and he should NEVER be in the HOF.
Too bad, he had a shot until he decided to cheat. And amphetamines wouldn't have changed his numbers that drastically so let's (please) not go there.
Yea, good old Mark, a "Monday morning quarterback" genius. LOL
Carry on https://forums.collectors.com/profile/AxtellIsBack
likewise, @DeutscherGeist !
look forward to reading more of your contributions around these parts
since this Lazarus McGwire thread has been unearthed, i'll toss in a personal story. i know, i know. tl;dr. but for those who gut it out, i'll do my very best to make it worth your while.
back in the Spring of '98, one of my best amigos from college contacted me to see if i'd be interested in going to St. Louis to catch a handful of games at some point during the season. reason being, he was/still is a diehard Cards fan. at the time i followed baseball religiously, so i was in like flynn. a couple of other college buddies decided to go as well.
it was April when we started looking at a calendar, so the season itself was in its infancy. we settled on Labor Day weekend, which would allow us to see four STL games -- Sept 4-6 against the Reds, and Sept 7 against the Cubs (Labor Day). our plans were to take one extra day off to fly back to Texas, on the 8th.
by now you should know where i'm going with this.
long story just a little less long, it was an unbelievable stroke of luck. all hell broke loose that summer, and by the time we reached St. Louis the entire city was buzzing. we could not believe our little trip had the real chance of coinciding with history, and there was no place we would have rather been.
Friday, Sept 4 -- Reds beat the Cardinals 3-2. no HR from Big Mac. still at 59.
Saturday, Sept 5 -- Cardinals beat the Reds 7-0. McGwire launched a cloud-scraper for #60. at this point things were getting very serious, because we now knew that we had two shots to see him tie or break Maris's record.
Sunday, Sept 6 -- St. Louis beat Cincinnati 5-2. no ding dong from Mac, which was a real bummer. but the consolation prize for my buddy who coordinated the trip was the fact that a) STL won again, and b) Ray Lankford (his fav player) hit a tater instead. more on him later.
Monday, Sept 7 -- STL beat Cincy 6-3, but the outcome turned out to be peripheral. when we originally made our plans months earlier, we decided to splurge for this particular game. last one of the trip, so let's open our wallets. if memory serves, we paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $75 apiece to sit a few rows behind the Cardinals dugout. remember, these were earliest-part-of-the-season-in-1998 prices. well, one vivid memory i have is a scalper surreptitiously confronting me in the hotel lobby the morning of the game and offering $1500 for my ticket. that amount is nothing to sneeze at now, make no mistake about it, but back then it was an extremely tidy sum -- especially when you take into consideration that i was just a few years removed from college. but there was less than zero chance of me selling mine, and the same held true for my three compadres. we wanted to be there to witness history in those killer seats, and no amount of money could sway us.
and it happened. Big Mac ripped one off of Mike Morgan and #61 was in the books. the most surreal sports moment of my life, by a very healthy margin. i'll never forget it. i'll also never forget McGwire yanking one foul later in the game, otherwise #62 would have gone down as well. no doubt i would have been in dire need of resuscitation had that happened. surrealism overload!
believe it or not, all four of us contemplated taking yet another day off from work just to stick around and see the Tuesday game against the Cubs. we knew what was going to happen. and sure enough, it did. but we collectively had to get back to Texas, thus we missed #62 off of Trachsel. no regrets there.
back to Ray Lankford as i wrap this up. kind of a funny story looking back. so, my buddy had a borderline unhealthy bromance with RL, and during that trip he took it one step too far. i can't recall which game it was -- i believe it was the 2nd or 3rd we saw -- but the Cardinals had a promotion called "Shirt off my back," or something similar. they sold raffle tickets at a buck apiece and if you were extremely lucky, the name of a Cardinals player was unveiled once you were finished scratching. if you were so fortunate, you then made your way down to the field and said player would remove his game-used jersey and put it on you for the entire stadium to see.
well, my friend supposedly left to go to the bathroom prior to the game. when he returned, my eyeballs almost yo-yo'd out of their sockets when i saw the colossal bag of tickets he was cradling. and yes, this convo is verbatim because it's something you can't possibly forget.
"what the **** is that???"
"doesn't matter what this is."
"i seriously can't believe this. just how much did you spend???"
"doesn't matter how much i spent. know why? because i know Ray is in here."
well, turns out Ray was not in there, and neither was any other Cardinals player. 🤣 $500 -- that's right, $500 -- down the tubes. in my entire lifetime i don't think i've scratched my own ass as much as he scratched the next couple of hours. then of course there was the obligatory homicidal stare toward the guy whose shoulders were on the receiving end of Ray's jersey. lol
as this story pertains to the topic at hand, i don't feel duped over 20 years later. it's an indelible memory etched in my brain. had i been a little bit smarter at the time, i would've been able to put 2 & 2 together. him practically pumping balls out of the park on a nightly basis leading up to the record should have triggered tornado sirens, but i didn't think much of it other than a Paul Bunyan-esque pro athlete performing an otherworldly act on a consistent basis. that's exactly what i yearned for as a fan of -- at the time -- baseball.
i'm not even sure the sport would have recovered had it not been for all of the rampant cheating going on. heck, maybe it hasn't, because a little over 20 years later and i can't name five players on any roster outside of the Astros'.
I'll bet that was a fun experience.
Knowing what I know now, I feel that Maris' record still stands.
now that was an awesome story. thanks for sharing.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.