When asked if Mariano Rivera is the best closer in baseball history — an opinion widely held among those around baseball — Gossage was only too quick to toot his own horn.

“I think that he is a tremendous relief pitcher. He’s the best current-day, modern reliever. But it’s just like you can’t compare the 500-home-run club today to the old 500-home-run club. When I was inducted into the Hall of Fame, I was told that I had 53 saves with seven-plus outs. I was told that Mariano had one and Trevor Hoffman had two. So I think that says it in a nutshell.”

Says what in a nutshell?  I supported Gossage’s candidacy for the Hall of Fame.  I felt he belonged.  But his constant harping on how many two inning saves he got is getting old.  He did his job and he did it well, but that’s not how the game is played anymore.  Mariano Rivera is almost never called on to pitch two innings for a save, so how can Gossage or anyone else draw any conclusion from the fact that Gossage had 53 seven-plus out saves and Rivera only has one?

And by the way, don’t act like you didn’t know how many seven-plus out saves you had, Goose.  Before you were ever inducted into the Hall of Fame, you were criss-crossing the country reciting your stats to anyone that would listen.  No one knows your stats better than you do.

At the end of the interview, Brescia asked Gossage if he thought Mark McGwire should be in the Hall of Fame.  Gossage replied,

“No. And I mean no. In the Olympics when they catch them using performance-enhancing drugs, they strip their medals. I can’t see any difference in baseball. None of the steroid users should get in.”

I’m growing tired of this idea that some people like to spout that before steroids, baseball was as pure as the driven snow.  It is especially maddening when former players — guys who were around for other other types of cheating — float this nonesense.

One of my writing heroes, Joe Posnanski, does a fantastic job of explaining how baseball has always had cheating of one sort or another.  During Gossage’s time, amphetamines were the drug du jour.  Posnanski writes:

“Then there’s amphetamines. I have never understood why many people are so outraged about baseball players’ steroid use and so unperturbed by amphetamine use. I guess it makes some sense on a gut level — injecting yourself with steroids seems so much more villainous than popping a couple of greenies to get a boost. Steroids seemed much more in our faces as fans. The players unapologetically got bigger. A few of them hit an unnatural number of home runs. There seemed a much more direct cause and effect … steroids = bigger muscles = more home runs. And maybe the cause and effect did not seem quite as obvious with the widespread use of amphetamines.

“BUT … is any of that true? Best I can tell, amphetamines (like steroids) were illegal without prescription in American society but were just a part of the baseball culture. Best I can tell, amphetamines are performance enhancing drugs that, many people feel, sharpen focus and increase energy levels and help an athlete overcome exhaustion. Best I can tell, amphetamines can have terrible side effects and can be difficult to quit (and can be extremely dangerous to quit).

“In other words, it seems more or less the same level of cheating and more or less the same level of wrong. As far as whether amphetamines had a huge effect on the game … I don’t know. I don’t want to throw names out there, but there are records and performances — consecutive games played and huge stolen bases totals just as a for instance — that you could logically connect to amphetamine use.”

And just to drive the point home a little further, Gossage was part of a Yankees’ clubhouse that was notorious for it’s use of amphetamines.  I don’t know if Gossage used the drug or not, but he certainly had to know that they were being used.  Maybe that’s how Gossage had the energy to throw so many seven-plus out saves.  Who knows?  But if it is, if Gossage used amphetamines even just one time, should that disqualify him from the Hall of Fame?  Should he be disqualified simply because he played during the amphetamine era?

Goose Gossage and other former players need to take a good, long look at themselves and their contemporaries before they start condemning steroid users and those suspected of steroid use.  Baseball has skeletons in its closet going back to the game’s earliest days.  If the requirement for induction into the Hall of Fame was that you had to be chaste, moral, upright, and pure, the Hall of Fame would be an empty building.

Today, I’d like to focus on those players who have been on the ballot previously and who are being considered again this year.

Hold-Overs

Harold Baines — Keith Olbermann believes Harold Baines should be in the Hall of Fame.  Keith Olbermann is wrong.  Baines had a long, successful career, but a long successful career alone does not a Hall of Famer make.  If a DH is going to get into the Hall this year, it’s going to be Edgar Martinez.  And as I stated yesterday, he’s not getting in.

Bert Blyleven — Yes!  This is the year for Blyleven.  He should be in the Hall already, but sometimes these things take longer than they should.  Here’s an interersting factoid: No pitcher has been elected to the Hall of Fame since 1999.  That was the year Nolan Ryan was elected.  Another interesting factoid: Nolan Ryan is the only pitcher in major league history to rank higher than Blyleven in career wins, strikeouts, and shutouts.  According to Baseball Reference, of the 10 most similar pitchers to Blyleven, eight are already in the Hall of Fame.  The other two, Jim Kaat and Tommy John, both had outstanding careers.  Blyleven garnered 211 votes (40.89%) last year and momentum appears to be building.  Blyleven will eventually make it into the Hall of Fame.  I hope it’s this year.

Andre Dawson — I’m a big Andre Dawson fan.  I’ve been pushing for him to get into the Hall of Fame for sometime.  For most of my life, I’ve evaluated players strictly by what I saw.  I might have looked at rudimentary stats like batting average, homeruns, and RBI, but not much else.  Based on this, Dawson should have been in the Hall of Fame already.  He was a leader who went out everday on two bad knees and left it all out on the field.  I love players like that.  For his career, Dawson hit .279/.323/.483 with 438 homeruns in 21 seasons.  He won 8 Gold Gloves and made 8 All-Star teams.  He was Rookie of the Year in 1977 and won four Silver Slugger awards.  Of course, his most impressive season was in 1987 when he won the league’s MVP award with a Cubs team that finished last in their division.  I know sabermetricians hate this kind of talk, but Andre Dawson really did have to be seen to be fully appreciated.  The numbers don’t tell the whole story.  As Ryne Sandberg said in his Hall of Fame acceptance speech, Dawson did things the right way.  And it showed in every game he played.  He sacrificed himself physically and statistically.  True, Dawson’s OBP of .323 is comparatively low.  In fact, if he is elected to the Hall of Fame, it will be the lowest of all the members.  I’m not going to argue that OBP is not important, but it also is not the end-all-be-all.  There’s more to the game and I think we sometimes lose sight of that.  Dawson was a great player despite his low OBP.  Or, to put it another way, even with a low OBP, Dawson was still a great player.  He could hurt you in so many other ways.  He could impact a game in so many other ways.  I don’t think there’s any doubt about where I stand on the subject, but will the voters feel the same way?  Last year, Dawson received 361 votes (67.0%).  No other player has ever received as high of a percentage of the votes without eventually being elected.  I don’t sense the same ground swell for Dawson that I do for Blyleven, but I’m still hopeful that 2010 is the year that “The Hawk” finally makes it in to the Hall of Fame.

Don Mattingly — Mattingly was really good for a short period of time, but back issues prevented him from extending his time at or near the top of the game.  He won the AL MVP award in 1985, led the league in batting average in 1984, and finished in the top 10 in the league for batting average five different times.  He was selected to six All-Star teams.  Mattingly was an outstanding fielder, winning Gold Gloves nine times.  In fact, many feel he was the best fielding first baseman to ever play the game.  And yet, he was only really good for six of his 14 years in the big leagues.  The other times he was just good, or average, or worse.  I don’t see Mattingly making it in to the Hall of Fame and I wouldn’t vote for him.

Mark McGwire — Let’s look at Mark McGwire without the taint of steroid allegations.  Let’s just look at the player, not the controversy.  McGwire was a prodigious homerun hitter…That’s about it.  Oh, he won a few awards.  He was Rookie of the Year in 1987 (when he hit 49 homeruns).  He was selected to 12 All-Star teams.  He also won a Gold Glove award in 1990.  But truthfully, he was pretty one dimensional.  McGwire’s game was power and he was very good at that.  But he was average at best at the other aspects of the game.  In my mind, Mark McGwire does not belong in the Hall of Fame. 

Jack Morris — I used to be in favor of Jack Morris being in the Hall of Fame.  He seemed like such a great big game pitcher.  But after studying his stats a bit more, I’m not so sure he was as good as I first thought he was.  Unless some new perspective on Morris’ career comes along and knocks me off my feet, I’m voting “no.”

Dale Murphy — Consider this: During his career Dale Murphy won two MVP awards, five Gold Gloves, and four Silver slugger awards.  He was selected to play on the All-Star team seven times, led the league in homeruns twice and RBI twice.  There’s little doubt that Murphy had an outstanding career.  And yet, much like Don Mattingly, he was only at the top of his game for a relatively short amount of time.  He had seven (maybe eight) really good years and the rest of his 18 year career just doesn’t stack up.  I think it’s safe to say that “Murph” belongs in the Braves Hall of Fame, but not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Tim Raines — Raines was a really good ball player.  He was a terrific lead-off hitter and is one of the best base stealers in MLB history, finishing his career with 808 stolen bases, good for 4th all-time.  He finished his career with a hitting line of .294/.385/.425 with 170 homeruns over 23 seasons.  But was he an elite player?  No, I don’t think he was.  I don’t think Raines gets in, at least not this year.

Lee Smith — Smith was a really good closer.  He was a seven-time All-Star and a three-time winner of the Rolaids Relief Man Award.  During his 18 year career, he led the league in saves four different times and ended his career with 478 saves, the most in MLB history at the time he retired.  And yet, Smith was not really a dominant closer.  He was a good closer for a long-time, but not a dominant closer like future Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera or current members of the Hall Bruce Sutter or Goose Gossage.  In fact, more often than not, Smith was not even the best closer in his league.  In nine of his 18 years, he was in the top three in the league in saves, but the other nine years he didn’t crack the top three.  If you’re not one of the top players at your position for 50% of your career, it’s going to be hard to make an argument for you for the Hall of Fame.  As I said, Smith was a very good closer, but in my opinion, his career falls just short of putting him in the Hall of Fame.

So that’s it.  Let’s recap who I voted for:

• Roberto Alomar
• Bert Blyleven
• Andre Dawson

If I have any say (and I don’t), that’s your Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2010.

The real results of the voting will be announced by the Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday, January 6, 2010 at 2:00 PM ET.