EP151: Hypocrisy in Sport

I can't believe I am saying this but baseball actually caught my attention this week. As one Yankee slugger (Aaron Judge) passes another (Roger Maris), talk of who the real single season home run king has made its rounds on social media. Is it the juiced up players of the 90's or the non-juiced players? This is, of course, assuming those who never tested positive for a banned substance would never take anything to enhance performance. Wink wink ;)

Because of this story, I was reminded of an interesting book I read back in the day titled Cooperstown Confidential by Zev Chafets. In it, he brought up baseballs checkered past and details some of the shady conduct associated with the league. Eventually, he shares that Major League Baseball has a clause that reads: The Hall of Fame asks voters to decide based on a player's record, ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and team contributions. This is referred to as the character clause and is often cited as the reason for keeping legendary players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens (known steroid users) out of the Hall of Fame. If character is cited as the reason for keeping some players out of the Hall, that is fine with me but lets take a look at some of the current Hall of Famers...

Assault somebody so bad they may have died (Ty Cobb), no problem. Members of the Ku Klux Klan (Tris Speaker and others), come on in! Doctor the baseball (Gaylord Perry) to ensure success, aka cheating, fine by me! Dabble with some cocaine (Paul Molitor) or smuggle some drugs (Orlando Cepeda) no problem there. Decades of Amphetamine use in every teams locker room, we will keep the door open for you. Take some performance enhancers or bet on a few games, NEVER! Am I being cyncical or is there some hypocrisy here?