Hall Of Fame Says No To McGwire
This story was written by CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian and producer Phil Hirschkorn.
Only one in every four professional baseball writers voted for one-time home run king Mark McGwire to be admitted to baseball's Hall of Fame, making McGwire one of the first casualties of the "steroids era."
McGwire, who belted 583 home runs in a 16-year playing career, ranking 7th on the all-time list, was named on only 23.5 percent of the ballots. Players need to be named on 75 percent of the ballots to be honored.
The newest pair of Hall of Fame inductees was no surprise. Iron man Cal Ripken, Jr. and hit king Tony Gwynn—considered two of the game's model citizens—were inducted. Of the 545 professional baseball writers who voted, 98.5 percent, put a check next to Ripken's name, the highest total for a position player in baseball history, while Gwynn garnered 97.6 percent. No one else made the cut.
McGwire's rejection was expected, and numerous sportswriters recently expressed qualms about choosing him.
"If you fully believe in your heart that somebody probably did use performance-enhancing drugs, and his numbers were enhanced by illegal drugs, I don't see how you then you can just open up the doors to the Hall of Fame, the highest honor in baseball and say, 'go ahead in,'" Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci told CBS News.
Since the magical summer of 1998, when Big Mac became an icon, slugging a record 70 home runs in one season, he seems to have become an outcast—some would say scapegoat—for the game's problem with steroids.
In the history of the game, every eligible ballplayer who has hit 500 or more home runs during the course of his career—15 in all—is enshrined in baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
As long as he garners at least 5 percent of the vote annually, McGwire has 14 more chances to be on the ballot.
Verducci told CBS News he did not vote for McGwire this year in spite of his impressive career statistics, including the best homers-per-at-bat ratio in the game's history.
"I don't know that Mark's numbers are entirely believable. I do believe that on the strength of numbers alone, he's a Hall of Famer. And I've heard people say, 'He's a one-dimensional and shouldn't be a Hall of Famer.' Well, I mean that's like saying Frank Sinatra was one dimensional because he could sing," Verducci says.
McGwire's most famous home run occurred on Sept. 8, 1998, when he pulled a line drive over the left field wall at the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis. It was his 62nd home run of the season, shattering one of baseball's most revered records—the 61 homers hit by New York Yankee Roger Maris in 1961.
McGwire finished that season with 70 homers—four more than Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa, who led his team to the playoffs in 1998 and was named the national league's most valuable player.
Social critic Michael Eric Dyson, a humanities professor at the University of Pennsylvania, argues McGwire deserves entry into the Hall of Fame because his electrifying home run race with Sosa revived a sport still recovering from a strike-shortened season in 1994 and because baseball didn't ban the use of performance-enhancing drugs until 2003, two years after McGwire had retired.
"He played by the rules that you said were fair, and now that you changed the rules, you want to change your judgment of his behavior? That is the living example of hypocrisy," Dyson said. "By the rules that were explicit when Mark McGwire played, he should be admitted into the Hall of Fame for the great good he's done for the game, for the fair competition he exhibited on that field."
From the heights of baseball's record books, McGwire saw his fortunes fall. In 2001, San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds broke the single season home run record, slugging 73. Then in the spring of 2005, McGwire was among a panel of baseball stars subpoenaed to testify before a House of Representatives committee.
Missouri Democrat William Clay, whose district includes the home of the Cardinals, pressed McGwire about what other supplements he may have used in addition to androstenedione, a body-building nutritional supplement.
"I'm not here to talk about the past," McGwire said, repeating his mantra that day, dodging all questions about steroid use. He steadfastly denies using them.
Though Bonds is now closing in on Aaron's record of 755 home runs, his feats are also tainted in some eyes by alleged steroid use. The same kind of scrutiny has befallen Sosa and Rafael Palmiero, who both recently ended their careers with more than 500 home runs.
Last year, baseball appointed former U.S. Senate Majority Leader and globetrotting mediator George Mitchell to investigate steroid use. "It's going to be thorough. It's going to be fair, and it's going to be independent," Mitchell promised.
Now Mitchell tells CBS News that his team has "conducted hundreds of interviews and received thousands of documents." He said that cooperation has been "good from many" but "less than good" from others. Mitchell won't predict when his report will be finished.
"Steroids have been the dead skunk under the porch of baseball, and they're trying to get rid of that smell or at least pretend it's not there, and they're hoping the Mitchell investigation puts it all to rest," Verducci said. "I don't think it will, because I don't think it's going to close all the loopholes and certainly not name any names than we've already known."
Today, McGwire is living in virtual seclusion in a gated community in Southern California. Mementos of his career—the autographed bat he used for his 500th home run, the ball ripped into the stands for 62 in 1998—are stored in Cooperstown, even if the man himself is not enshrined there.
"The rules that were in effect when Mark McGwire played are the rules by which he should be judged. If you move the hoop up three inches, you can't take away the record that a guy made on that three-inch lower hoop before he retired." Dyson says. "Mark McGwire broke no rule; that should be the end of story."
Also falling short were relief pitchers Goose Gossage (71.2 percent) and Lee Smith (39.8 percent), outfielders Jim Rice (63.5 percent) and Andre Dawson (56.7 percent), closer and starting pitchers Bert Blyleven (47.7 percent) and Jack Morris (37.1 percent). Players are eligible for the Hall of Fame starting five years after they retire.
