Baseball's apocalypse

Steroid culture has reared its ugly head once more with NHL jerseys Mark McGwire 'coming clean' on Monday. His name, along with all the other steroid users, should never be placed in the same sentence as integrity.
Don't look so shocked.
Smoother and easier? Neither should happen. He clammed up in front of the U.S. Congress on that fateful March day in 2005, answering some pointed questions about his steroid use with a weak, "I'm not here to discuss the past."
While he never lied before Congress (which may prove to be the smartest thing he did during the whole sad episode) that doesn't mean that baseball, as an institution, should welcome him back with opened arms. The bottom line is he cheated; smashing Roger Maris' 1961 home run record by not one or two, but rather by nine. The lofty tally aided, as he now confesses, by steroids. How could he have hugged members of Maris' family with a straight face when he broke the single-season home run record? Only McGwire can answer that now.
Am I the only one who's starting to feel like there are many tentacles attached to this story? Here we sit, just over a month until training camps open, and suddenly, without warning, this pops up. Everyone, including McGwire, Cardinals' manager Tony LaRussa and commissioner 'Bud' Selig, say the right things. McGwire says he only turned to 'roids after suffering through a string of injury-plagued seasons. LaRussa confesses that he was "encouraged that (McGwire) would step forward ... and his explanations will be well received." Finally, there is Selig's assessment that the admission will make "Mark's re-entry into the game much smoother and easier."

I failed to mention Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, both strongly alleged but not proven PED users, but each will get what's coming to them when the legal system runs its true course.
As I've written in columns previously, none of the steroid/performance enhancing drug users should ever be feted in Cooperstown. Not McGwire, not Alex Rodriguez, or Jose Canseco, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Jason Giambi or Andy Pettitte. Or any of the players mentioned in the Mitchell Report. Quite simply, each represent cheating and have no place in the Hall of Fame. Not with their own wing; only with asterisks in the record book.
I guess we'll really see what's up over the next couple of winters. Rafael Palmeiro, a member of the 3,000-hit club, is on the ballot for the first time with a failed drug test on his resume. Other first-timers include 1998 American League MVP Juan Gonzalez, Kevin Brown and Benito Santiago - all of whom appeared in the Mitchell Report.
So, where does this leave the Baseball Writers Association of America, the protectors of the game? Until now, the most votes that McGwire has received hovers around 23 per cent, far short of the 75 per cent needed for induction. It says here that the number may go up slightly but not even close to the number required. And this will have a significant effect on who gets in from this generation of players, a dozen or so who had Hall of Fame numbers, but all tarnished by drug use.
Clemens, Bonds and Sammy Sosa will all appear on the ballot. Hopefully all will have come clean, either forced through legal proceedings or voluntarily.
With that being two years away anything is possible.
For the sake of the game, long based upon records and tradition, here's hoping all the names of players who juiced are finally public and this mess can finally be left to the historians.
For the uninformed, Home Run Derby was a TV show back in 1960 that pitted the top sluggers of the day in a home run contest; something that wouldn't be possible in the modern game.
It was an era before power in a bottle arrived onto the baseball scene.
I'll let you in on a bit of irony that I encountered upon checking into my hotel in St. Paul, Minnesota on Tuesday night to prepare for the Canucks/Wild game on Wednesday. As a flipped around the dial, I came across the four ESPN channels. Of course, college hoops were on the main network and the 'Deuce'. On ESPN News, though, McGwire was getting grilled by Bob Ley and 'Big Mac' was in pure spin mode. Then when I went one channel higher to ESPN Classic, there was Home Run Derby, without any chemically-altered sluggers, in all of its black & white glory. And there was a young Hank Aaron, who once held the most cherished home run record of all, opposing Ken Boyer. Back-to-back channels, with all that is currently wrong with the game butted right up next to all that used to be good.