Baseball players should get one shot at Hall of Fame

ON BASEBALL

How many times does a man need to be rejected before he gets the point?

Once, twice, 14 times?

Sure, there are the lucky ones. But for most men, the results remain the same.

No, I'm not talking about women (I'm saving that for a future column). This is about baseball, and the ludicrous timetable the Baseball Writers Association of America has for selecting those enshrined in Cooperstown.

In case you haven't heard, former Red Sox star Jim Rice was elected into the HOF the other day ... finally. I'm happy for Rice and not nearly qualified to make an educated judgment on whether he deserves to be in the HOF.

But here's what I can say: The fact that Rice had to wait 15 grueling years to find out — for sure — if his name would be placed alongside the pastime's all-time greats is just asinine. Hell, people die during a decade and a half. Rice is 55; something could have happened to him.

Rice's story is happy; I'm sure there have been plenty of sad ones.

Here's the point: Baseball players become eligible to appear on the annual HOF ballot five years after retiring from the games. Some of them, like Rice, don't find out their fate for another 15 years. Players get 15 "chances" on the ballot. In other words, they can get less than the needed 75 percent of votes 15 times before they're finally dismissed.

Simple question, folks: Are any home runs hit five years after retirement? Are any bases stolen? I mean, I know Rickey Henderson was that good. But even Henderson, the other recently named Hall-of-Famer, hasn't stolen a single base since ending his glorious career.

So why 15 years? Why not one year, one chance, one vote? Don't tell me members of the BWAA aren't knowledgeable enough to make a decision the first year a guy's name comes up. Don't tell me they might change their mind after seven years because he's done a lot of charity work.

A player's eligibility should be based — solely — on his performance on the field. Nothing else. Yes, there might be a few cases when a player such as Mark McGuire ruins his candidacy by basically looking as guilty of taking steroids and lying about them as possible. But even in his case, we knew all that before the five years were up.

McGuire was heavily denied his first year of eligibility. Ditto his second. Why go through this another 13 years?

Hell, this system must even compromise some voters' choices for the HOF. No disrespect to Rice, but there's no way he should have gotten 4.2 percent more votes this year than he did a year ago. Those, to me, are pity votes. It was his last chance, and some voters gave in.

Players should get one chance. Either you're in or you're out. Then they can move on, forget about it and live their lives. After all, most baseball players retire before hitting their 40s. It's cruel for them to be thinking about this well into their 50s and even early 60s.

Let them progress nicely into the next phase of their lives.

Perhaps the saddest case is that of former pitcher Bert Blyleven. This was the 12th shot at the HOF for the man who ranks fifth all-time in strikeouts. And again he missed out, getting just 62.7 percent of the need 75 percent of votes.

But get this: In Blyleven's first year of eligibility in 1998, he received a whopping 17 percent of the votes. What the heck has changed? I'm not saying Blyleven's undeserving, but there's no way a guy should see that kind of increase in votes. He hasn't even saved a third-world country.

For Blyleven's sake and sanity, I hope he gets in soon and can put the whole thing to rest because it's killing him. In an ESPN Radio interview Tuesday after getting snubbed, he lamented, "I feel like crap" and went on to say, "I have a tough time dealing with it from year to year."

Blyleven is now 57. This should have been off his mind when he was a spry 46.

Voters need to make up their minds once for each player — and then move on.

So that the former major leaguers can do likewise.

Baseball already??

ON BASEBALL

I heard a rumor Tuesday morning.

Sitting at the dining room table, eating some blue corn chips, I opened the sports section to read that it was "Opening Day." Wait ... Opening Day? On the 25th of March?

I continued reading to find out that not only was it opening day, but it was taking place across the world in Japan, and it featured just two major league teams — Boston and Oakland.

The next day, while browsing the paper and eating some Raisin Bran, there was the box score from the Red Sox' win over Oakland — right next to a whole bunch of exhibition linescores. I encountered the same confusion when I opened up today's paper.

And now — another rumor — Boston and Oakland will go back to playing exhibition games with the rest of the teams?

Listen, I love baseball as much as any other 1980s baby. I grew up listening to every Tigers game on the radio — even though the team was terrible. I don't go a year without making it to a few Tigers game even though they're tearing down the stadium they should still occupy.

Without baseball season, I don't know what I'd do all summer.

But baseball in March makes as much sense as sailing in January. Yeah, not a good idea.

Not only did no one care about Opening Day, which was on T.V. at 6 in the morning here, but the actual first game of the season in the U.S. is just that — a single game. Atlanta will play Washington Sunday night in an ESPN national telecast. On the same day, the A's and Red Sox — who are both 1-1 — will play their final exhibition games?

My head is spinning.

Finally, the legitimate Opening Day — as in, where almost every team plays in ballparks across the country — will take place next Monday (March 31). Only problem is, not only will it be anticlimactic, well, the climates in certain places might just be too chilly/snowy to handle baseball.

Detroit. Chicago. Philadelphia. Cleveland. The list goes on...

Does not anyone remember what happened in Cleveland a year ago? If my memory serves me right, the Indians and Mariners were doing snow angels on Jacobs Field (which, apparently — after a scan of the Web site — is now Progressive Field). And then they played a baseball game in Milwaukee! Yet, Bud Selig and his cohorts has this idea that we should start baseball season in March. And if sports weren't such a huge part of my life, I wouldn't pay one bit of attention to the first week of baseball season.

That's because the beginning of baseball season is trying to steal some magic from the end of March Madness. On Final Four Saturday April 5, there will be a plethora of baseball games. Ditto on championship-game Monday.

Now, baseball fans might say that the end of college basketball season is infringing on the beginning of their season. After all, it's "March Madness," not "March-April Madness," right?

But c'mon, people. Isn't baseball season long enough as is? Just this past fall, the World Series was pushed back to reach November. Including spring training, that's eight and a half months of baseball. I love the game — really do — but even that's overkill.

This is an easy solution: Start baseball season the Tuesday after the national title game. This year, that would mean April 8. It would also mean less of a chance of a snow-out, which I can all but guarantee will happen in some northern city next Monday.

Of course, my proposal has no chance of happening. That was so, like, 10 years ago.

Today's sports world is all about globalization and primetime audiences. That means flying the Red Sox and A's 15 to 20 hours across the world for a period of a few days. I don't blame Josh Beckett one bit for not wanting to go, regardless of his injury. I wouldn't.

I wouldn't have had as big of a problem with the teams flying to Japan during the middle of March for a week of exhibition games. That way, the Japanese fans still would get to see some Major League Baseball. They would still get to watch their hero Daisuke Matsuzaka in person. But it wouldn't take away from Opening Day back here.

Now, I couldn't care less about Opening Day I, Opening Day II or Opening Day III. They're all too early for me. My main focus will be on college hoops until "One Shining Moment" a week from Monday.

Even if my Tigers are 6-0 at that point.

What a mess

ON BASEBALL

Does anyone even care anymore?

Do modern-day records even have any legitimacy anymore?

Yes, it's gotten to this point.

If it weren't for the Red Sox winning its first World Series in 96 years and the White Sox its first in 98 years, wiping out the past 10 years of baseball wouldn't be a bad idea.

Seriously.

Here's how bad things have gotten for MLB commissioner Bud Selig: Arguably the game's best hitter of all time, Barry Bonds, is generally assumed to have taken steroids and was recently indicted for obstruction of justice and perjury.

And arguably the game's best pitcher, Roger Clemens, looks just as dirty. According to last week's Mitchell report, Clemens had his trainer inject him with Winstrol.

While I'm not jumping to any conclusions, Clemens has done nothing in the week since the report came out to make himself appear innocent. Tuesday, he issued a statement through his lawyer believable as Bonds' countless "I am innocent" statements.

If Clemens were innocent, he would have immediately called a press conference after learning of his name's inclusion in the report. He would have stood up in front of dozens of cameras and told the truth. But, no, instead he said in his heartfelt statement that he will speak at the "appropriate time."

When will that be? Once, of course, Clemens' legal team figures out what can happen to him because of the report's findings.

Whatever.

No matter what scheme Clemens' team puts together, I'm not believing him. He had a chance last week to refute the report. Statements through lawyers don't count. Call me Mike Nifong, but Clemens is guilty.

Which makes him no better than Bonds.

So following that thinking, here we stand in 2007 — with two of the game's greats under a nebulous anvil, not to mention several other high-profile players, such as Andy Pettite who admitted to using HGH twice.

Once, twice, 18 times, it ain't right, Andy. Even if you're supposedly using it to heal from an injury. Yet Pettite's apology, if you can call it that, read (AP), "If what I did was an error in judgment on my part, I apologize. I accept responsibility for those two days."

"If," Andy? C'mon. Illegally obtaining HGH from a trainer isn't exactly a good deed. Who are you trying to kid?

Not only are the guilty players unwilling to stand up for their actions and admit they were 100 percent wrong, Selig thinks he tried everything to keep this from happening.

You serious, Bud?

Let's see. Despite that home-run jacking Summer of '98, when Big Mac launched 70 and Slammin' Sammy added 66 — after hitting 36 the previous season. Despite Bonds' jump from 49 dingers in 2000 to 73 to '01. Despite increased long balls from Miami to Seattle, Selig refused to implement a steroids policy until September of 2002.

And despite revisions before the '05 and '06 seasons, it's still as weak my non-existent triceps (see my previous column, "Baseball needs to follow IOC's lead").

Yet Selig, like Bonds and Clemens, refuses to apologize for what the nation's former pastime became.

In an AP story, Selig said: "I'm proud of where we are. We have the toughest testing program in American sports. We banned amphetamines, which were a problem in our sport for seven or eight decades."

Selig went on to say that minor league drug testing has been in place for eight years now

Yay! Good to know we've been catching the guys who we don't care about anyway. It's not the younger players — the minor league players — who have done the most juicing, Bud. It's the older guys who need that boost to make it through the long season.

And as far as baseball having the "toughest testing program in American sports," who cares?

I hate when people defend themselves through comparative means. Sure, baseball has a stricter policy than the NBA. But I'm sure if David Stern smelled a rising HGH addiction among his players, he'd institute harsh penalties. Heck, Stern regularly suspends players for flagrant fouls even when they appear to be going for the ball.

But back to that other sport.

This isn't going away. Not this year. Not in five years. Maybe not in 10 years. The debate will be heated when Bonds and Clemens become eligible for the Hall of Fame. And when, and if, A-Rod approaches Bonds' home-run record.

I've already suggested a lifelong ban for MLB players who are caught taking steroids or HGH. It won't happen. Players, unfortunately, won't be scared to use the next undetectable product on the market. They won't be afraid of getting caught.

At first I thought the Mitchell report was a good thing, which helped to shed light on baseball's Big Problem and submit suggestions for the future.

Now, I don't know. Now, I don't care.

Being naive is no longer an option. The truth is too transparent.

Baseball, its players, its records and it holy shrine in Cooperstown are all tainted.

And will likely continue to be tainted.