Sammy slams 600

It's not every day a major league ball player hits a milestone home run, it only seems like it. Last night's milestone happened to be one that's truly deserving of being one though, depending on how you feel about Sammy Sosa that is.

Slammin' Sammy, the former Cub who captured our hearts as he duelled with Mark McGwire a few years back over the single-season home run record, hit the 600th home run of his famed career. This number puts him in the elite ranks of boppers along with only four other men; Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and everybody's favourite player, Barry Bonds.

So with entry into the 600-club, does this ensure Sammy a place in the hall-of-fame when he wraps up his career? By all means it should, but you would’ve thought the same about Mark McGwire, wouldn’t have you. The difference is that Sammy hit this rarefied-air plateau that should grant him automatic inclusion, even if he was part of the “juiced era”. Time will tell and I’m sure there will be some debate among purists some years down the line when Sosa is up for induction. There’s already debates about 300-win pitchers and 500-home run players being hall-worthy, is an allegedly steroid-abuser and 600 HR hitter shielded from these criticisms on his way to Cooperstown? In these eyes, there shouldn’t be a doubt that Sosa should be enshrined his first time around.

Cooperstown Joke

Baseball’s Hall of Fame voting, the worst process since the one that put Bush in power.

This year two men who are overwhelmingly qualified for Hall of Fame status didn’t receive the entire 100% of votes. While Associated Press writers who have reached a status deeming them “worthy” of voting for inclusion to Cooperstown, those who didn’t pencil in Tony Gwynn or Cal Ripkin Jr. should lose their right.

One writer, Paul Ladewski of the Daily Southtown, turned in a blank ballot. His claim was that no one from baseball’s “steroids era” should be allowed in the hall. So players in baseball from roughly 1993-2004 will now have no chance to be inducted unanimously, even though a player like Ripkin, who played in 2632 straight games to set a seemingly unbreakable iron-man record, clearly deserves the honor.

The only thing that Tony Gwynn ever did was capture eight batting titles, five gold gloves and played in 16 all-star games. I would like to know how a man on steroids can have a career high of 17 home runs.

I could understand how a voter could leave Mark McGwire off their ballot considering the turmoil he’s surrounded in. But 23.5% of voters looked past his character issues (namely his ties to the steroid scandal) towards his numbers and the sheer dominance he had on the game during his chase for the single season home run record. McGwire is ranked seventh in career home runs and is only one of 20 players to have hit 500 long balls. Apparently, no one remembers how Big Mac started getting people to care about baseball again after the disastrous strike.

Shouldn’t Cooperstown be about recognizing the best players to ever play? Why should a player who participated during a certain time period be penalized because of it? And if most players were (allegedly) on steroids and other performance enhancers at this time, then weren’t McGwire’s statistics comparable to his peers? Was he still not one of the best in his era?

Hopefully one day, a better system will be put in place to vote for who is worthy of hall contention. Hopefully one day, McGwire will be enshrined in Cooperstown. Maybe one day the controversy with Big Red will be which team’s hat he will wear on his plaque.

The sad thing is, this isn’t even the biggest disappointment related to the Baseball Hall of Fame; Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader, may never be enshrined. But that’s for another time.