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.

McGwire finally addressed the issue earlier this week when he sat down with Bob Costas of the MLB Network and confessed to using steroids during his career, including during the 1998 season when he battled Sammy Sosa for the single season homerun record.

In the interview, a sometimes weepy McGwire indicated that he first tried steroids briefly after the 1989 season and again in 1993 to help him recover from injuries.  McGwire claimed that his steroid use was strictly for health purposes, not for a performance advantage.  He said that his constant injuries were a source of frustration and he used PEDs to help him get back out on the field.

During a five year period in the mid-90′s, McGwire was placed on the DL seven times and missed a total of 228 games.  By 1996, he was so frustrated that he called his father to tell him that he was thinking of retiring.  After the phone call, McGwire began using steroids more frequently because he believed steroids could help him recover from injury and stay healthy.

McGwire also confirmed that he was using steroids during the 1998 chase to beat Roger Maris’ single season homerun record.  However, McGwire denied that steroids helped him to hit homeruns or set the record.  He maintained throughout the interview that the steroids only helped him be on the field, not to hit.  He claimed that he was blessed with the God-given abilty to hit homeruns and that there is no pill or supplement available that can give a person the hand-eye coordination necessary to hit a baseball. 

Over the past two days, bloggers and reporters alike have been brutal in their coverage of McGwire’s confession.  I’ve read everything from one blogger calling the the 1998 homerun chase a “sham” and nothing different than watching the WWE to a reporter who claims to know that McGwire isn’t sorry for taking steroids, he’s only sorry for getting caught.

Many people are upset that McGwire’s greatest feat, breaking Maris’ single season homerun record, was only accomplished through cheating and they urge baseball to return the sacred record to it’s rightful holder.  They want any and all records set by McGwire to be expunged and they want McGwire and his other steroid-using ilk to be banned from the Hall of Fame.

There are so many angles to this story, it’s hard to know where to start.  First, I think it’s good that McGwire came clean.  Sure, it’s been 10 years since he retired from baseball, but better late than never.  According to former-Rep Tom Davis of Virginia, McGwire was prepared to come clean to Congress in 2005, but the then-Attorney General would not agree to give him immunity from prosecution.  Because of this, McGwire’s lawyers advised him to not talk about his steroid use.

Unless he’s an Academy Award-winning actor disguised as a former baseball player, I think he was being sincere when he apologized for his PED use.  I think he understands the damage he did to himself and the game, and he is sorry that he did it.  I also believe that his confession is not designed to garner him support for the Hall of Fame.  He honestly doesn’t seem that concerned with whether or not he ever get’s into the Hall.

When analyzing McGwire’s statements, you have to look at the whole picture to get a true sense of what was going on.  From a young age, McGwire was a baseball prodigy.  A prodigious hitter who hit a homerun in his very first at-bat as a little leaguer.  His power hitting continued into high school, college, and into professional baseball.  The 49 homeruns McGwire hit during his Rookie-of-the-Year season in 1987 was impressive, but not entirely out of the ordinary for him.    

He was, from the beginning of his career, a homerun hitting machine and his ability to hit the long-ball earned him a lot of money.  The pressure to stay healthy and continue to be on the field to hit homeruns was intense.  His teammates were counting on him, and in the late 1990′s, the game of baseball was counting on him. 

Following the strike year of 1994, baseball’s popularity had plummeted and the game needed a feel-good story to once again build interest in the sport.  McGwire, along with Sammy Sosa, provided that story in 1998 when both players engaged in a chase to break the single season homerun record; one of baseball’s most sacred records.  

From the beginning of the 1998 homerun chase, McGwire was unhappy about the pressure and attention he was receiving.  Much like Roger Maris before him, McGwire wasn’t interested in breaking any sacred records or being a poster boy for baseball.  He simply wanted to play the game and help his team win. 

At some point during the season, he saw how Sammy Sosa was handling the pressure of breaking the record and decided he too wanted to enjoy the experience.  He changed his approach with the media and he embraced the possibility of breaking record, and he started having fun.  Even so, the pressure to perform never eased. 

Putting myself in that same situation, I have to believe that I too would have turned to steroids (or any other drug) if I thought it could help me recover from injuries.  It would be easy to justify.  Why shouldn’t I take steroids?  They’re not banned by MLB and MLB doesn’t test for them, so the powers that be in baseball must not care.  If I take them, I can come back from injuries more quickly and they will help me stay healthy (at least that’s what I believe), so I’d be foolish not to take them.  Plus, if I stay healthy I can continue making a lot of money.  Taking steroids seems like a win-win for everyone.

Let me put that last paragraph into a different context.  Let’s say I’m a bright guy working for Corporation X.  I make a lot of money at Corp. X, but I know that one slip up and I could be out on the street looking for a job.  I also know that there are no other jobs like the one I have and truth be told, I’m really not qualified to do any other jobs.  I really like the prestige that comes with my job, but more importantly, my family is counting on me to continue to bring home my large paychecks.

Let’s also assume that Corp. X is counting on me to boost company sales.  Revenue has been down the past few years and suddenly I’m in the spotlight and being asked to make the company relevant and profitable again.  Unfortunately, I’ve been struggling with my health over the past few years and I’ve missed a lot of work.  When I’m in the office, I’m one of the best, but I’ve struggled to make it into the office consistently for a while now.

If you were in that situation and you found out there was a pill that you believed could help you stay healthy and make it into the office, wouldn’t you try it?  You could keep your job; you could keep getting bigger and bigger contracts; you could continue to provide for your family; you could continue to enjoy the prestige that comes with your job; and you could save Corp. X in the process.  Of course you’d take that pill.  Who wouldn’t?

It’s for this reason that I have a really hard time with people who condemn McGwire for his steroid use.  They hold him to a standard that they themselves would not have been able to meet had they been in the same situation.  Being a professional athlete doesn’t relieve you from having to make tough decisions.  It also doesn’t guarantee that you’ll always make the right decisions.  In McGwire’s case, he made the wrong decision, but it was the decision that just about everyone else would have made given the same circumstances.

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St. Louis Manager Tony LaRussa was on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight following McGwire’s confession and said that he didn’t know that McGwire was using steroids until McGwire called him shortly before his confession to the Associated Press on Monday.  Others in baseball have said they were unaware of steroid use in their clubhouses, although some like Curt Schilling, has said that he had suspicions.

I remember reading a blog post a couple of years ago by Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle who said that he was in and out of locker rooms throughout the 1990′s and was completely unaware that PED use was going on.  He said this in defense of team owners, managers and GMs who were being criticized for saying that they were unaware of drug use by their players.  Justice’s point was that he couldn’t join in the criticism because he was right their with the players, but didn’t know steroid use was going on.

Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune claims that he knew something was going on.  In his article, he says:

“Like others in my profession, I knew something smelled bad. But reporters were handcuffed by the lack of information then available, so we picked our adjectives carefully and looked for contributing factors — smaller ballparks, a pitching pool diluted by expansion, shrunken strike zones, baseballs that doubled as super balls.”

What a bunch of crap.  Rogers now says he knew something was going on, but he was “handcuffed by a lack of information then available.”  Really, Phil?  If you suspected something, maybe you could have actually investigated the matter.  Isn’t that what reporters do?  If Woodward and Bernstein had shared Rogers’ mentality, we never would have heard about Watergate.

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When asked if he thought McGwire’s confession would help him get into the Hall of Fame, 91-year old HOF pitcher Bob Feller said he thought it might help a little, but not much.  Feller went on to say, “I wouldn’t vote for him, and I don’t think he’ll get into the Hall of Fame in my lifetime.”

Was that last line supposed to be a joke?  McGwire could get voted into the Hall of Fame next week and there’s a good chance it won’t be in Feller’s lifetime.  He’s 91-years old and unless he turns out to be immortal, he could go at any minute (Of course, in a larger sense, isn’t that true of all of us?).

I don’t mean to be disrespectful of the man.  After all, he was a very good pitcher and a WWII veteran.  But why do people keep going to him and asking him his opinions on issues like this?  There are other living Hall of Famers, you know.  It’s as if a reporter decides he needs a curmudgeonly quote for his story, so he immediately calls Feller.  “He can always be counted on to say something crazy.”

**********

I did see a quote from one other Hall of Famer.  The story, written by the AP and published on FoxSports.com began:

Goose Gossage watched Mark McGwire’s televised confession to steroids use and was happy his former teammate came clean. That’s where the praise ended, with the Hall of Fame reliever saying there should be no place in Cooperstown for McGwire or any other player who used performance-enhancing drugs.

“I definitely think that they cheated,” Gossage said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “And what does the Hall of Fame consist of? Integrity. Cheating is not part of integrity.”

I like Gossage.  I always liked the way he pitched and I felt he deserved to be voted into the Hall of Fame long before he actually made it in.  Regardless, I think his comments are off base. 

Perhaps Gossage has forgotten that many of his contemporaries used amphetamines rather routinely to boost their energy levels and help them shake off the effects of a long night.  There are a lot of similarities between the amphetamine use of the 1970′s and the steroid use of the 1990′s.  Both drugs were used to help players recover; one from long nights and cross-country flights, the other from injuries. 

Some people will claim that amphetemine use was different than steroid use because steroids were used to give players an unfair advantage.  I don’t see much of a difference.  Both drugs were used to help players play better.  How can one be wrong and the other acceptable?

And when Gossage talks about the integrity of the Hall of Fame, is he talking about the integrity of Ty Cobb’s overt racism or the way he purposely tried to injure opposing players?  Maybe he’s talking about the integrity Enos Slaughter displayed by initially refusing to play on the same field as Jackie Robinson or his reputation of being the dirtiest man in baseball.  If that’s not the integrity he’s talking about, perhaps it’s the integrity of Gaylord Perry’s spitball or Phil Niekro’s use of an emory board to scuff baseballs, or Paul Molitor’s drug use, or Fergie Jenkins arrest for possession of marijuana.

In order for Gossage to claim that McGwire and other players that used steriods can’t be in the HOF because they are cheaters and lacked integrity, he first must look passed the current members of the Hall with all of their character flaws and past transgressions.  If Gossage himself truly exhibits integrity, I don’t think he can make that statement in good faith.

**********

I think it is somewhat ironic that people are calling on baseball to restore the single season homerun record to 61 and make Roger Maris the record holder once again.  When Maris set the record there was an outcry that the record wasn’t legitimate because the season in which Maris set the record was two games longer than the season in which Babe Ruth originally hit 60 homeruns.  Ruth’s record was considered sacred and people wanted Maris’ feat to be entered into the record books with an asterick.

Now, suddenly, Maris’ record is sacred and people are demanding that McGwire’s 70 homerun season be stricken for all time.  The outrage is the same as it was in 1961.  It is also just as misguided.

McGwire is a product of his era.  He was a PED influenced hitter hitting against PED influenced pitchers.  Were all hitters and all pitchers using PEDs?  Obviously not, but PED usage was widespread enough that it had a major impact on baseball culture. 

Joe Posnanski says it very well in this quote from his Sports Illustrated column: 

Let’s be brutally honest here: McGwire was not the only person to use steroids in his era, and he’s not one of only a few, either. He played baseball in an era when there was no testing and no real stigma attached to using performance-enhancing drugs. He had teammates who used steroids. He faced pitchers who used steroids. He had hits robbed by fielders who used steroids. Amphetamines had been part of baseball going back several decades. Steroids had been a prominent part of football for at least that long. Supplements that stirred smaller but similar effects to steroids — such as andro — were legal both in and out of baseball. I don’t mean that as an excuse, I mean it as context. Mark McGwire used steroids in a very different emotional time.

Forty or fifty years from now, people will look at the steroid era much the same way that people now look at other eras in baseball.  The passage of time will allow for more perspective.  We’ll all view Mark McGwire and others implicated in the steroid era much differently than we do today.

I can tell you that my opinions of steroid use in baseball have changed radically in just the past five or 10 years.  For instance, I was incensed when it was suggested that Barry Bonds had taken a substance that could help him get stronger and hit more homeruns.  As revelations of steroid use by other players started to leak out, my anger was reduced to disgust. 

More and more information came out about steroids, as well as HGH.  Additional names were included in the Mitchell Report.  Failed drug tests performed by MLB were leaked.  As time passed, it became clear that a lot of players were using PEDs, not just a few.  My disgust changed to reluctant acceptance and then understanding about not only the culture that existed in baseball that allowed PED usage to flourish, but also the fact that every era in baseball has had its issues. 

I’m not happy about steroid use in baseball, but like other regrettable actions and circumstances, it is a part of the game.  It’s a part that has and will make baseball stronger.  Contrary to what some claim about the steroid era, the game is not tarnished nor will it be destroyed.  It is just one chapter in a wonderful book.  Other chapters may be better or worse, happier or sadder, but it takes all chapters to tell the entire story.

And as one character in that book, Mark McGwire is neither evil nor is he a villian.  He is simply a flawed individual who made some poor choices.  I believe the choices were made for all of the right reasons, but the choices were wrong nonetheless.

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.