Phone Call, Contd.

When Clare called me on Wednesday with news of the HOF voting results, she sounded nearly as happy for what didn’t happen as for what did—PEDs’ poster boys Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens failed to get in.  With candidates needing 317 votes from eligible baseball writers, Clemens managed 242 (a pickup of three from the year before) and Bonds 238 (the same as the previous year).  “You know how I feel about that,” said my daughter about steroids as well as the people who take them.

I couldn’t help but think of those “see no evil” MLB.com writers, Joe Posnanski in particular.  Prior to the announcement of the HOF vote, Posnanski wrote, “I voted for Bonds and Clemens because I believe that they’re two of the 25 greatest players in the game’s history.”  Then, in assessing the vote, he cited Joe Morgan’s keep-the-cheats-out letter as a momentum killer for the Steroidic Duo.  And that was it.  No impassioned defense of these two purported greats, no “J’accuse” hurled at the baseball establishment for blackballing B and C from getting into Cooperstown.  With friends like that, Bonds and Clemens don’t have a chance.  Thank God.

It really doesn’t matter what dinosaurs like Posnanski and I think.  What matters is what a young person such as my daughter thinks.  Clare harbors a very strong dream of becoming an athletic director and coach, perhaps; either and both would put her in a position of power.  She could look away on the issue of PEDs, or she could make it her business to tell players and coaches why juicing is wrong.  What it all comes down to is Clare never believed that the desire to win entitled her to cheat.

Neither should anyone else.