Monday, the Baseball Writer’s Association of America announced the 2009 selections for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Elected to the Hall of Fame were Rickey Henderson, one of the greatest outfielders of all time who certainly deserves it, and Jim Rice, whose election is a little questionable, but I will not object to it.
Unfortunately, one player was wrongfully denied entry to the Hall of Fame for the third year in a row: Mark McGwire.
McGwire is best known for his 1998 season, in which he shattered Roger Maris’ single season 61 home runs record by hitting 70, despite being walked a then-record 162 times. Sammy Sosa also surpassed Maris’ mark that season, and McGwire and Sosa’s home run chase reignited fan passion for the game.
McGwire is easily one of the best offensive players in Major League Baseball history, and his statistics make his case for the Hall. He followed up his record season with 65 home runs the next year and hit a total of 583 in his career, good enough for eighth all-time. His lifetime slugging percentage of .588 is ninth all-time, and he is the all-time leader in at bats per home run.
McGwire led his league in home runs and slugging percentage in four different seasons, and in on-base percentage twice. He was consistently one of the very best offensive threats during his career.
He is a 12-time All-Star, a three-time winner of the Silver Slugger Award, and the 1987 AL Rookie of the Year. And just to show he’s not completely a one-dimensional player, he also won a Gold Glove in 1990.
To look at it from a different statistical angle, look at win shares. Win shares is a complicated statistic whose formula would fill up this entire newspaper, but it takes all of a player’s and his team’s offensive and defensive stats into account and attempts to put it into a single statistic representing one-third of a win for his team. McGwire’s 342 win shares rank him 11th all-time among first basemen, and 22 first basemen are in the Hall of Fame, so logically, McGwire should be elected as well.
The big knock on McGwire, in some people’s eyes, is his supposed steroid use. McGwire was not one of the 89 players implicated in the Mitchell Report (yes, that’s right, Congress is taking time away from the war on terror, global warming and the financial crisis to talk about baseball, but that’s a subject for another column), so any evidence for his use is based on hearsay, as he never failed a test or admitted to using any.
McGwire did use androstenedione, a substance which was neither illegal nor banned by baseball at the time of his home run chase, and stopped using it once it was outlawed. Perhaps McGwire did use illegal steroids, but until someone can offer proof of it, all we know is that if he did, it was not to the extent that many other players were using. Steroids should not keep McGwire out of the Hall.
We can debate statistics and steroids back and forth all day if we want, but we forget one major issue: Mark McGwire saved baseball. After the 1994-95 player’s strike caused the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and parts of two seasons, people became cynical to the sport overall.
The 1998 home run chase captivated the nation and made people care again. Indeed, both attendance and TV market share, which had fallen significantly after the strike, rose to pre-1994 levels in 1998 thanks to McGwire and Sosa.
In conclusion, Mark McGwire ought to be a slam dunk for the Hall of Fame. His numbers justify his entry, as do his intangible contributions to Americans forgiving the strike. I sincerely hope the writers get over their steroid hang-ups about him, when he is not one of the main offenders, and elect him one day.
Harry Nelson is a senior majoring in political science and math. He can be reached at [email protected].