Hey! Here's a Guy Who Has Managed To Write the Dumbest Article About Steroids and the Hall of Fame Ever!

Doesn't that seem impossible? I mean, really--impossible? The HOF steroids issue has reached critical mass this year with like 5 or 6 guys on the ballot whom baseball fans strongly suspect used steroids. Given that is the case, everyone with a BBWAA card and a sense of strangely positioned moral righteousness has decided to sound off about this, that, and the other thing in an increasingly cacophonous cipher full of sound and fury signifying blah blah blah. And a lot of those articles are really really dumb.

But this article by some knucklehead named Dominic Genetti really takes the cake for terrible, terrible articles about steroids and the HOF. Let's dive right in.

Well the moment has finally come, players wrapped around steroid controversies are on the baseball hall of fame ballot.And it includes three guys who have their supporters and their haters — Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa. Out of the three it appears only Clemens has the only route to enshrinement. Despite trials and accusations and this and that, there has been nothing that points to Clemens using anything but water. But the accusations and negativity around Clemens is too fresh, there hasn't been time for the haters to take a moment and see the light of truth. Plus, there hasn't been time for Clemens himself to get out and be a coach or be involved with a major league club to refurbish his reputation. Trust me, the day he becomes a pitching coach for a competitor, the love for Clemens will come back. 

So far so...whatever. I mean, me personally, playboy, I don't give a fuck about steroids in the hall, not with dozens of known amphetamines users snugly secured in the plaque room, but if one did, this isn't the worst beginning to some polemic against their enshrinement. Par for the course. Of course, Genetti is not content to just blandly moralize. No, he has to drop the stupid on us with the force of an H-bomb:

The best thing for the baseball writers to do is elect Craig Biggio unanimously and show those who took steroids — and send a message to those considering using them — that going against the game's rules, not playing naturally can, and will, hurt your career. It's clear Bonds had his issues with steroids and Sosa came forward confessing he used them during the peak of his career. 

Lol wut? That's the best thing for baseball writers to do to send a message about steroid? Is elect a guy unanimously who is far from exempt from steroids suspicion?

Also, I'd like to call attention to the last clause of this snippet regarding Sammy Sosa confessing to steroids use. In the words of "kids these days": Link plz!

Biggio is just the best choice of the top four popular names on the list anyway because no one played with more effort, more heart and more dedication than him. Clemens was a great competitor, so was Lee Smith — who had a great career as a closer and is also highly favored on the ballot — but Biggio did everything but pitch.

Hey, look--I'm not necessarily here to tear down Biggio, and shame on Genetti for putting me in the position to do anything resembling that, but this is unadulterated horseshit. Let's break down the idiocy here:

1.) To the extent that Biggio is a deserving HOFer (and he absolutely is), reducing his qualifications to "playing with effort and heart" is the equivalent of building Derek Jeter's case around him playing for one team his whole career. Matter of fact, I'm surprised jackass didn't bring that up here for Biggio.

2.) There are a lot of players on the ballot who played with heart and intensity. Like for instance, all of the serious candidates. You don't have a HOF career without playing with intensity unless you're Greg Maddux or some shit. But hell, let's reduce it to players who played with excessively visible intensity and are equally qualified as Biggio. Like, for instance, Tim Raines who isn't suspected of using any performance ENHANCING drugs, and comes up zero times in this article. Or Roger Clemens, the only evidence of steroid use for whom comes from a guy with the credibility of...well...Domonic Genetti

3.) I am getting real sick of Lee Smith as a legitimate HOF candidate. Shut the fuck up, BBWAA and elect the deserving candidates before you get to the Jim Rices of the world.

4.) Biggio did everything but pitch? I mean...most position players do that. It's kind of the definition of position players. Or do you mean he was a complete player who was able to seamlessly move positions? That has serious value--but only because he put up great numbers while doing it. Otherwise you have Brandon Inge. VOTE HIM UNANIMOUSLY PLZ KTHX BYE

Biggio was the kind of guy who made pitchers take deep breaths before every pitch because they really had to concentrate to face him. He did everything to beat you offensively. He made hitters and runners groan when he snagged the ball defensively because he very rarely messed up. And when he did he made up for it on the next play or at-bat. 

Number of times pitchers worried about what pitch to throw Jeff Bagwell: Zero

Number of times Bagwell made a mistake and made up for it on the next play as if he were Carl Lewis in the middle of a national anthem: Zero

Biggio's 3,000-plus career hits are more than enough to get him into the hall his first time on the ballot and the efforts he made in the field everyday should make him a unanimous choice.

Relevance of Biggio's 3000 hits to hall of fame qualifications: 100%

Relevance of Biggio's effort in considering his qualification as BEST BASEBALL PLAYER EVER OR AT LEAST MOST DESERVING OF BEING FIRST UNANIMOUS ELECTEE TO HOF: I don't know...like 0.25%?

It's possible by "efforts in the field" he means "fielding." So...given that the only players elected to the HOF solely for his fielding (Bill Mazeroski, Ray Schalk) had to wait for the Veterans Committee to put them in....relevance of fielding to Biggio's unanimity? Like 12%

I can remember when he would start games at catcher and finish the game at second base. He was made of concrete and bricks, it seemed like nothing could stop Craig Biggio and because of him the Houston Astros — the team he spent his entire career with — had successful runs into the postseason becoming the second team in the history of the NL's Central Division to win the pennant in 2005. The Cardinals were the first to do so in 2004. 

Hey, yeah! Biggio was a great player. I agree. And hey, the Astros had a great run in the 2000's. That's absolutely relevant to Biggio's HOF qualifications, I would agree as well. If only there were another player on that team equally un-implicated by any objective source in the steroids scandal to whom this Astros success would apply!!!!

Oh and the 2005 Astros? Weird year to pick to talk about how Biggio didn't benefit from PED's. Let's imagine that the psychic abilities of Genetti and other likeminded fools are right and Biggio never used but Bagwell did. How would the success of a team with three steroids superstars (in Bagwell--in this bizarre hypothetical--Pettite and Clemens) be a testament to the CLEAN MACHINE CRAIG BIGGIO?

A franchise can only have so many faces as each baseball season comes along and Biggio is certainly one of Houston's many — and in most eyes he is the only. 

I'd love to see some sourcing on that, Genetti. A team who had a gimmick called "The Killer B's" celebrating a number of superstars whose last name started with B--one of whom besides Biggio played for the Astros for nearly 20 years. That sounds like a team with only one face of the franchise. I'm really curious who these Astros fans are who are like "Forget Berkman and Bagwell--all we needed was Biggio." I suspect they number in the one's and their names all rhyme with Vomit Dick Richard Petty.

There are a number of players waiting for that opportunity to get "the call" with the voice on the other end telling them they've been elected to the National Baseball Hall Of Fame and Biggio should be the one who gets it this year. A lot of folks will say that if he doesn't get in now, he'll get in eventually. Well okay, I get their logic, but if he's going to get in eventually, let's just put him in now and not someone who needs to work his way back in to the hearts of baseball fans after a steroid controversy. 

The petty asshole in me wants to point out how poorly constructed that last sentence is from a "not writing like an 8th grader" standpoint so...I will.

If it were up to me, I'd like to see both Biggio and Smith go in. That'd be quite the induction class to go along with former Cardinals shortstop Marty Marion, who seems to be highly considered by the Veterans Committee. 

One of the most stacked ballot in years, only three players from which have any substantial stink of steroids on them and he hopes three people get in--one very qualified, one who would become one of the 5 worst pitchers in the hall...and Marty Fucking Marion.

The last thing I'll say is this: I understand people are suspicious of people with strange numbers in the steroids era. I'm not going to argue whether steroids users deserve to get in, that steroids do or don't help performance, or what the standards of the HOF should or should not be (except to say Lee Smith shouldn't sniff the HOF until every single holdover including Jack Morris is inducted). But I will say this:

No matter what standard you use, Craig Biggio is every bit as circumstantially guilty of steroid use as Bagwell. Same team with Caminiti, Clemens, etc etc. Same longevity. Same late career spike in power numbers. These can all be explained rationally, but I'm not interested in that, since  these writers aren't--no matter how rational or irrational you want to be, to argue that Biggio is THE CLEAN SAVIOR OF BASEBALL AND THE HOF and Bagwell is a DIRTY USER WHO USED AND CHEATED WHILE USING AND I JUST KNOW absent anything beyond the evidence available to every baseball fan makes you a moron, a hypocrite, and a piece of shit. Or in other words, Domonic Genetti