Baseball Hall voters face tough choices

LITTLE ROCK — There was a time, earlier in my career, when voting on the Baseball Hall of Fame was a clean, clearly defined exercise, allowing me to honor the careers of can’t-miss candidates like Wade Boggs and Eddie Murray while taking up the fight for the underappreciated, like Goose Gossage and Bert Blyleven.

Those were the days, when forgiveness of sins was as benign as cutting Roberto Alomar a break for having spit on umpire John Hirschbeck.

Next year, however, the election process dissolves into chaos when the referendum on steroids arrives with the class of 2013, which includes Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mike Piazza, Craig Biggio and Curt Schilling.

Good luck to anyone trying to make sense of the ballot’s hazy instructions, which urges voters to consider a candidate’s “character.” But how, exactly, does that apply to the juicers?

Punish the ones who openly admitted to cheating? No forgiveness for them?

How about the ones who were suspected but never caught or, for that matter, not even mentioned in the Mitchell Report?

Obviously it’s a messy science, although some have suggested a black-and-white solution: Either let them all in or banish them all to purgatory, convicts and suspects alike.

I used to think steroids were no great trespass on the game — nothing more than an outgrowth of the cocaine era in the 1980s. Instead of snorting, players in the 1990s started injecting, recreational drugs giving way to performance-enhancing drugs. And, goodness, did the sport take off. Home runs traveled farther and fastballs were routinely clocked in the mid-90s as the players themselves grew to NFL proportions.

The leap in athleticism was irresistible, and for a brief time I was swept up by this futuristic leap, but that’s before a player I covered peeled back the layers of steroids’ so-called magic.

It was all fake, he said. Yes, he was a juicer. On condition of anonymity, he explained why steroids changed the balance of power in such an unfair way.

“I got bigger and stronger and all that, but for me the difference was in my vision,” he said. “It was unbelievable how much better I could see, and how much easier it was to see the seams spinning. That meant I could wait longer on every pitch. I identified every pitch right out of the pitcher’s hand. Hitting was so easy I actually felt guilty at first.”

That was enough to convince me that steroids was like putting illegal superfuel in a race car. And if that illegally fueled car set a world record, would it be considered a legitimate feat?

Of course not, unless every driver was given the same access. Therein lies the real scandal of the 1990s and early millennium. Major League Baseball knew the cheating was rampant and should’ve chosen one of two paths.

Either legalize steroids and let the players make their own choices about the health risks, or the industry should have banded together sooner to wipe out every last syringe.

That includes Bud Selig, who took too long to admit his sport had a problem; the players’ association, which should have pushed for across-the-board testing to protect the noncheaters, and, yes, the media — myself included — for not asking harder questions.

Instead, we’re all covered with this era’s residue. Some voters say they’ll pay no mind to steroids next year, that it’ll be an election process driven strictly by numbers. Others vow they’ll never vote for the rogue stars, including Bonds and Clemens.

Deciding on Piazza, however, who never was openly accused and never tested positive, will be a challenge if only because the cloud of suspicion followed him throughout his career.

Luckily, I have a year to weigh the evidence, not to mention my conscience. Are rumors enough to keep a guy out of Cooperstown?

As of today, I think not.