I know I’ve written a ridiculous number of posts about the logical, institutional and ethical absurdity of electing baseballs’s steroid cheats to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, but I have sworn to slap this down every time it rears its metaphorical ugly head until my dying day.

The 2025 Baseball Writers’ Association of America voted Ichiro Suzuki (one vote shy of being a unanimous selection), CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner into the Hall. Three quick ethics notes on this. First, whoever it was who left Suzuki off his ballot should be kicked out of the association using the equivilent of the Ethics Alarms “Stupidity Rule.” He is not only a qualified Hall of Famer, but belongs among the upper echelon of Hall of Famers with the likes of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Rogers Hornsby.

Second, I have no problem with CC Sabathia making the Hall, but that he was elected just a couple of months after Red Sox star Luis Tiant was rejected by a veteran’s committee, probably ending his Hall of Fame chances for good, shows just how arbitrarily the standards for Hall admission are applied. Tiant was objectively better than Sabathia, a bigger star, and while CC was a flashy presence on the mound, Tiant was more so. Luis (or “Loooooie!” as he was known in Fenway Park) died last year, and had said that if they weren’t going to let him into the Hall while he was alive, they shouldn’t bother after he was dead. Maybe the voters were just honoring his wishes…

Here is the exchange from an ESPN panel of experts ( Buster Olney, Bradford Doolittle, Jesse Rogers and Jorge Castillo) that prompts this post, in response to the question, “Who is the biggest loser from this year’s voting results?”

Olney: “Manny Ramirez [that’s the big jerk above] , who now has just one more year left on the ballot with his percentage of voter support barely moving. In 2020, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America removed Kenesaw Mountain Landis’ name from the MVP award that it bestows because of his long history of racism, and yet a huge portion of voters continue to apply Landis’ character clause for steroid-era candidates. As far as the ballot is concerned, Ramirez is in good standing just like anyone else, but a lot of writers won’t let him into the Hall despite some evidence that PED users have already been inducted.”

Rogers: “There doesn’t seem to be a ton of softening for known PED users as Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez are making very little progress toward the 75% threshold. Ramirez, in particular, is a huge long shot to make the Hall of Fame with just one year left on the ballot. A-Rod still has plenty of time, but minds will have to change significantly for him to get in.”

Castillo: “Anybody known to have used PEDs. Whether you agree with it or not, the likes of Ramirez and Rodriguez will probably need the Eras Committees to be more lenient for induction.”

Doolittle: “Fans of historic achievements and a coherent Hall of Fame. I just don’t see Ramirez and A-Rod getting over the line, not if Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens didn’t. Nothing in this year’s number indicated any kind of a shift. To me, it’s absurd.”

Comments:

1. Olney’s cognitive dissonance scale argument that because Judge Landis, born in 1866, did not hold modern, post-civil rights era beliefs regarding African-Americans (he died before baseball ended its apartheid), his positions on other matters have no validity is the worst of the presentism fallacy and ad hominem reasoning.

2. A “huge portion of voters continue to apply Landis’ character clause” because the Baseball Hall of Fame rightly and to its great credit includes character and sportsmanship as critical admissions criteria, unlike the other professional sports. As Bill James has written, professional athletes, especially baseball’s, are paid heroes. The Hall of Fame is for players who honored and distinguished the game, were role models and who do not tarnish the honor for previous honorees. Cheaters do not qualify under these standards.

3. That “some” cheaters have probably made it into the Hall already is not an argument for letting them all in. One has to truly lack critical thinking skills to even say such a thing, but this is one of the most common arguments made for the worst of the steroid cheats, Barry Bonds, to be admitted to the Hall. O.J. Simpson was admitted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame before he murdered anyone. Olney’s reasoning would hold that O.J. creates a binding precedent that requires any future NFL star who is known to be a murderer (like Aaron Hernandez) to be admitted into the NFL Hall anyway.

4. “Minds will have to change significantly for [Manny Ramirez] to get in,” says Rogers. Translation: “Ethical standards in American society will have to rot away a bit more so cheating is shrugged off using the #1 Rationalization on the list, “Everybody does it.” In October of 2016 (just before you-know -what happened) , I wrote in another post about this issue,

“The cultural consensus that basic ethical values are intrinsically important for their own sake is rapidly falling apart. Millions see nothing significantly objectionable about Hillary Clinton’s dishonest handling of her e-mail, Obama lying outright to get Obamacare passed, Harry Reid lying about Mitt Romney to assist Obama’s re-election, Tom Brady conspiring against the rules to get an edge in a play-off game, journalists rejecting objectivity to elect whom they regard as “the best” candidate, civil rights activists using false narratives to advance their position, women using false statistics to claim workplace bias, colleges assuming the guilt of young men accused of sexual assault without supporting evidence, Congress being unconstitutionally bypassed by Presidential fiat as a solution to partisan stasis, and so much more, including the candidacy of Donald Trump, all applications of “the ends justifies the means.” Baseball’s capitulation to this deadly mindset will be complete the day Bonds, McGwire, Ramirez or Rodriguez enter the Hall…”

5. Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez aren’t making progress towards admission because after Barry Bonds they are the most despicable, unapologetic and undeniable of the steroid cheats. Both were caught using banned PEDs twice. Both also displayed terrible sportsmanship and professionalism when they were on the field, especially Manny. I would oppose him for Hall membership even if he hadn’t used performance-enhancing drugs as I explained here, one of several EA posts exposing this great hitter’s legacy as a toxic narcissist.

6. “To me, it’s absurd,” says Doolittle. He thinks its absurd not to sanctify a sport’s worst cheaters who soiled their sport and its record book. Good to know. I wouldn’t trust someone who thinks like that to mail my water bill.