In this generation, where dissecting the era prior to this one — the “Steroid Era” — makes the Baseball Hall of Fame voting process far more difficult than it has ever been before, it seems many players up for selection may be slighted for the sins of their fellow players.
Former New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza appears to be one of those players. In a poll conducted of 48 of the Hall of Fame’s voters by ESPN the Magazine in December of 2012, only 60.4 percent said they would vote for the former star. In order to earn induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, a candidate must receive votes on at least 75 percent of the voter’s ballots.
Piazza is being punished because of the witch-hunt mentality exercised by the voters, who are just as dirty as the players they now resent. Those same voters are the ones who built their careers on the feel-good stories of home run kings Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds. Those same voters are the ones that helped lift Major League Baseball to its pinnacle with full knowledge and evidence in front of them with what was going on. I’ll never buy a writer trying to tell me that he/she had no clue and was fooled.
What’s despicable about Piazza’s rejection is the lack of evidence available to excuse not voting the greatest hitting catcher ever into the Hall of Fame.
Did he put up huge offensive numbers in an era when many other players did? Most of whom may have been juicing? Certainly.
But he never failed a drug test, nor will you find his name on the Mitchell Report. There have been reports of Piazza supposedly having acne on his back — a sign of steroid usage — but many people have acne on their back. Hell, I’ve it before and I can promise you I’ve never taken steroids. It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that walking around in catcher’s gear every day for seven months while sweating his backside off might cause a little irritation.
Though Piazza was a 62nd-round draft pick by the Los Angeles Dodgers with minimal hope of ever making it to the Majors, he burst onto the scene with 35 home runs en route to the 1993 Rookie of the Year award. From there on out his power numbers never dwindled, eclipsing 30 home runs in nine of his 16 seasons at the Major League level.
He hit for average as well, ranking within the top 10 National League hitters six times between 1993 and 2000.
But because of the era Piazza played in — an issue Piazza could do nothing to change — he will not get into the Baseball Hall of Fame this year and his future is just as uncertain.
Upon his retirement, Piazza walked away from the game with 427 home runs, 1,335 runs batted in, over 2,000 hits and a career batting average of .308. He was a 12-time All-Star and finished within the top three in MVP voting three times in his lengthy career. And all of this was done while playing at the catcher position — a position that does not usually produce such prolific offensive numbers as Piazza posted.
In the past, that resume would have made him an unquestionable first-ballot Hall of Famer. With no incriminating evidence of any kind against him, that should remain the case when inductees are announced on January 9th.
Unfortunately, a career spent playing during the Steroid Era will likely cost Piazza his induction this year — and potentially for many years to come.
Louis Musto is a contributor to the Sports Journey Broadcast Network. You can follow him on Twitter @LouisMusto.