This week's debate involves choosing among three evils.If I had only one vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame, which would I choose -- Barry Bonds, Pete Rose or Shoeless Joe Jackson.
It's almost like choosing between measles, mumps or scurvy. It's almost like trying to choose among my debate partner's wardrobe selection. Do you wear your dress Guy Harvey shirt, or the casual one? Is there a right answer?
Shoeless Joe agreed to fix a World Series. Much has been written and said about how he was a simple-minded country bumpkin, who probably didn't understand what he was doing and didn't follow through with the plan. Jackson's statistics may bear that out, but he made a deal with the devil by agreeing to the fix and I'm going to have to say it ain't so to Shoeless Joe.
Pete Rose was banned from baseball for gambling on the game.
I have more trouble denying him my vote, because it has never been shown that he bet against his own team. It's also hard to leave him on the outside looking in, because he was one of my heroes as I grew up in the Midwest as a Reds' fan.
I'd like to see Rose in for his baseball achievements, but he did break one of the game's cardinal rules by betting on the game.
In light of new and overwhelming evidence that Bonds was on steroids, it'stough to give him the nod, but you have to consider the circumstances.
Bonds never failed a drug test given by Major League Baseball.
That may be more damning of their drug testing procedures than anything else.
During much of the time in question of Bonds' steroid involvement, baseball didn't have a true drug-testing policy. It was if baseball adopted the "don't ask, don't tell policy" of the military.
Anybody who paid any attention to baseball assumed that Bonds was just one of many players using performance-enhancers.
I'm not saying what Bonds did was right, but it wasn't exactly against any rules.
Bonds may be the least lovable of the three players -- in fact, his surliness makes him an easy target for disdain -- but he's the most deserving of a Hall of Fame vote.
randy.rorrer@news-jrnl.com
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