re: Hall of Famers Respond About this years non-class

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Steroids alone didn't. Smaller parks, more teams, tighter strike zones, tighter wound balls, shift in way game was played. You can reasonably argue that greenies affected games daily more than steroids. Plus it wasn't just hitters on steroids like the media wants to present.

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respectfully but completely disagree

steroids made some good players into MVPs (like Ken Caminiti), or guys who sets new standards (40/40 club of Canseco) or made great players like Bonds otherworldly. They changed the ways that pitchers had to approach guys like Bonds and McGwire because there was no safe place in teh strike zone to throw them a pitch - accordingly their batting averages and walk totals as well as their power numbers skyrocketed. They restored Clemens from a washed up pitcher to a guy who absolutely dominated in his early 40s

you can talk about ballparks, balls being wound tight, special bats etc - but IMO all that is just rationalization with the intent of avoiding the obvious. There are tons of ways to cheat - but nothing comes close to what steroids/PEDs did to change performance in baseball

Kaline, Gossage, and other former players already in the Hall who are opposed to the stars of the modern era being inducted are liars or, at best, deceiving themselves. As other posters have said, there's a LONG history of "cheating" in baseball -- by that I mean players will jump upon things that give them a competitive advantage if they aren't explicitly outlawed or there's no real effort made to enforce the banning of these tactics.

Nearly every one of those old windbags would have jumped at the chance to pop a pill or inject a serum that would give them the ability to hit 500+ homeruns or still be clocked at 98 mph after 100 pitches. They utilized whatever they could back then, players today do the same. If you want to invoke the integrity clause, it means you have to turn a critical eye on some of the players already enshrined in the Hall. Unless you want to start kicking people out, you're ahead to let the next generation enter.

And frick those guys anyway. Without the Steroid Era many baseball teams would probably be in a lot more precarious financial shape than they are now. The ADHD generation isn't so big on baseball, or so it seems to me. Disclaimer: I'm a part of that generation

If you ain't cheatin, you ain't tryin

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Nearly every one of those old windbags would have jumped at the chance to pop a pill or inject a serum that would give them the ability to hit 500+ homeruns or still be clocked at 98 mph after 100 pitches. They utilized whatever they could back then, players today do the same. If you want to invoke the integrity clause, it means you have to turn a critical eye on some of the players already enshrined in the Hall. Unless you want to start kicking people out, you're ahead to let the next generation enter.

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Totally agree.