COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith said he “passed the torch” to Barry Larkin on the final day of the 1996 season, Smith’s last, when Larkin and the Cincinnati Reds played in St. Louis.
That torch officially was accepted Sunday when Larkin became the first player who was exclusively a shortstop to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame since Smith in 2002.
Normally, the induction ceremony also marks the start of speculation on what will happen in December in the election by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America for the Hall of Fame class of 2013, but that conversation began long ago.
This will be the first year of eligibility for some prominent players associated with baseball’s steroids era, including Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa, who will join such other newcomers on the ballot as Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza and Curt Schilling.
Clemens and Bonds, who have been part of federal trials that ended in little or no punishment, are the most common subjects of conjecture.
How would the Hall of Fame handle it if either or both were elected? How many Hall of Famers who customarily attend the ceremonies would stay away, as some have pledged in recent years? Will the writers even vote for these players?
“The writers hold the keys to the elections,” said Jeff Idelson, the Hall of Fame’s president. “We’re very comfortable with the rules we’ve put forth. Whoever the writers select, if anyone, we’ll honor them and they’ll be represented just like anyone else in the Hall of Fame gallery.
“You’re either a Hall of Famer or you’re not.”
No “steroid era” label will be attached to any such inductee.
“When you walk through the plaque gallery you see that we don’t discern anywhere between different eras of baseball, and I don’t see any reason why we would start today,” said Idelson, who noted that he hadn’t heard “huge” sentiment lately about resident Hall of Famers not showing up if a new one with a fairly tarnished image would be inducted.
“Having the mantel of Hall of Famer supercedes any one point in time or any one event, and I feel that our guys take that role seriously and love coming back to Cooperstown,” Idelson said.
Smith said he didn’t mind passing the torch to Larkin.
“You give people credit when they’re good at what they do, and he certainly was one of the people who was good at what he did,” Smith said. “We played shortstop differently, but he was a great player nonetheless.”
Looking ahead, Smith said he had heard past conversations about Hall of Famers not wanting to attend a ceremony if they deemed an inductee unworthy.
“The closer we get to it, I’m sure the more discussions we’re going to have about that,” Smith said.
Hall of Fame outfielder Lou Brock said that if players connected with steroids asked for mercy and forgiveness, they probably would receive it and then a number would be elected.
“Baseball seems to be forgiving,” Brock said.
All the rhetoric is no problem for Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson.
“I don’t care if they get in or not,” Gibson said. “Players have always tried to cheat. This is a little different, but players have been cheating for years.
“But it’s not up to me anyway. It’s up to the press.”
Sports, Pages 14 on 07/23/2012