Hall of Congeniality.

 

Sigh. I had hoped never to write another word about Alex Rodriguez, singularly annoying character that he is. A-Rod is like foot fungus: inescapably irritating, annoying, no matter how much you try to ignore him. Sooner or later, you just have to scratch that itch.

Especially when the National Baseball Hall of Fame takes its annual turn in the spotlight.

Let's face it: the Hall is based on a great big, charming lie, and always has been. It is in Cooperstown because that is supposedly where Abner Doubleday laid out the first diamond and defined the rules of the game.

Never mind that Doubleday was best friends for 20 years with the president of the National League and never said, "Hey, you know that sport you run? I invented it."

Instead, Doubleday described his favorite outdoor activity, in his own memoir, as "topographical work." 

In fact, it's too big a lie for even Cooperstown to stomach. You know who's not in the Hall of Fame? Abner Doubleday.

But I digress.

Let's look at this year's selections:

Joe Mauer. Great hitting stats for a Gold-Glove catcher...but how much catching did he do? Throwing out the 2 years in which he played fewer than 100 games, Mauer averaged 71 games behind the plate every year. Throwing out the 5 years that Yogi Berra played fewer than 100 games, he averaged 121 in the tools of ignorance. For a DH-first baseman, which he was for the majority of his career, Mauer just did not hit with enough power, or get on base enough, to be a true HOFer.

Todd Helton. C'mon. Helton played his entire career in Colorado, which makes it all the easier to parse his home and away stats. In Denver, he was a monster, .345/.441/.607/1.048, with 227 home runs. Away from the rarified air of the Rockies, this Rockie was .287/.386/.469/.855, with 143 dingers. More of a Bullwinkle than a Rocky (get it, huh, huh?)

Jim Leyland. Great manager, right? 22 seasons—11 of them winning. All-time winning percentage of .506. All of three pennants and one World Series—with a wild-card team. Hey, got nothing against Leyland...but is this more of an attendance prize than anything else?

Adrian Beltré. Perfectly fine stats. But he does have a classic juicer's profile: a bunch of seasons, usually in a walk year, when he suddenly hit for much higher average and power than ever. 

Which brings us to the other big lie haunting the shrine in Cooperstown. Or rather, sliming the place with juice.

The other story about this year's fab selections was that A-Rod, while still on the ballot, continued to lose votes. Soon, he will be off into the limbo where the HOF currently sticks all juicers...or rather, all juicers they don't like.

The bloom came off the dubious rose that was the HOF's PED policy when Big Papi made the Hall. Ortiz, a known juicer, was in. So have any number of other known juicers been in, over the past few years. Whereas Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens, and Albert Belle, and A-Rod, and even Papi's own teammate, Manny Ramirez...are out.

Don't care about any of those unsavory individuals?  Well, how about this: Jorge Posada is already off the ballot...while known juicers I-Rod and Mike Piazza are in. 

Essentially, selection to the sanctum sanctorum, the ne plus ultra, the Valhalla of the American has been reduced to the Miss Congeniality Contest. Juice, don't juice: if you get along with enough sportswriters, you're in. If you don't...

Time—past time—to stop the nonsense, once and for all. We need a ruling. Either no juicers in the Hall, or juicing doesn't matter.