Rafael Palmeiro’s Comeback & Fight Against Steroids

I will be completely honest here, Rafael Palmeiro broke my heart. Why you may ask? Well I have like four-or-five of his rookie cards in mint condition that I was planning on cashing in once he made it to the Hall of Fame, but after an inclusion in the Mitchell Report and a failed test for steroids before the end of his playing days the value of his cards plummeted. Palmeiro will likely never make it into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York and I will likely never strike it rich off his Topps Tiffany playing cards, but that won’t stop Palmeiro from fighting back against his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs. In fact, Palmeiro is taking his fight against steroids so far that at the ripe age of 53-years old he is making a return to professional baseball.

After spending much of his MLB career with the Texas Rangers and the Baltimore Orioles the former MLB first baseman is now headed to the Cleburne Railroaders of the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball. Rafael will also be joined by his son, 28-year old Patrick Palmeiro, on the Railroaders.

Palmeiro let it be known this winter that he would like to return to Major League Baseball and even went as far as to claim that he could still contribute at the Major League level. Palmeiro asked for an invitation to spring training to prove that and to win a job outright this spring, but no teams were willing to extend the invite leading Palmeiro to play for Cleburne to try and prove that he still has it. Palmeiro also wants to prove that he still has it, and has always had it, without the boost that performance enhancing drugs can give.

Palmeiro was quoted as saying to The Athletic in December:

"Maybe 12 years later, if I can come back and prove I don’t need anything as an older player with an older body, then people might think, OK, maybe he didn’t do anything intentionally."

That sounds great, now it’s time to prove it. Good luck.

Hello… Short, Sweet and to the Point. Just Like You.

Good morning everyone and a Happy Thursday to you all. My apologies for not saying “Hello…” yesterday but sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Life gets busy, and life gets crazy, but it is so worth it these days when in years past it just wasn’t if I am being honest. Kari, you are my world and I love you. Waking up with you and taking my first breath, going to bed with you and finding sleep with you wrapped up in my arms, and everything in between wouldn’t feel nearly as good, nearly as sweet or nearly as gratifying without you in my life. I love you, stay you, and thank you for being you.

The Steroid Era Did These Players No Favors

With another year of Hall of Fame voting behind us and another year to discuss who should be in, who shouldn’t be in, who took what, who should be able to vote, who the judge, jury and executioner should be and who is really being helped and who is being hurt by the whole steroid era ahead of us I wanted to focus on a little something different today. All the talk surround the steroid era and the Hall of Fame is focused on players who got an unfair advantage and “cheated” the sport that cheated them in 1994 with the strike and work stoppage but what about the players that are being cheated by the steroid era? Players like Mike Piazza until recently and a few other standouts from this year’s class that didn’t get in. names like Jeff Kent, Gary Sheffield, Jim Edmonds, Sammy Sosa, Carlos Delgado, Fred McGriff and Larry Walker. What about them? 

Carlos Delgado finished his MLB career with 473 home runs and a .929 OPS but spent just one year on the ballot, not because he was elected in his first year of eligibility but because he didn’t garner 5% of the vote in his first year and will forever be left off the ballot. Fred McGriff on the other hand thankfully garnered his 5% in his first year of eligibility but it still on the outside looking in despite 493 home runs and a career .886 OPS.  

Then you have more current names like Jeff Kent, Jim Edmonds, Gary Sheffield and Larry Walker who all received around 10% of the vote despite stunning numbers in their careers. In Sheffield’s case specifically he was listed on the Mitchell Report explaining the lack of interest in electing him into baseball’s hall of immortality but the rest of the group is still puzzling. Jeff Kent is possibly the best hitting second baseman of all-time but he played in an era where players took steroids and played beside the most notorious suspected steroid user of all in San Francisco, Barry Lamar Bonds.  

Sammy Sosa has 609 career home runs and Rafael Palmeiro had over 500 home runs and 3000 hits, neither are in the hall or on the ballot. Palmeiro failed a drug test and waived his finger in front of Congress, Sosa did not. Sosa did suddenly forget how to speak English but that’s a thing, right? It’s not even important if you used or not anymore, what’s important now to many of these voters (it seems anyway) is when you played. Steroids may or may not have helped these players during their playing career but they damn sure aren’t helping them now, that much is for sure. 

I’ll probably never get a Hall of Fame vote and it’s probably for the best, I am too vocal and too friendly towards the steroid era. I want these players in because I am 100% sure there are players that used steroids before testing was implemented in the mid-2000’s that are still in the Hall. What’s good for one is good for them all and it’s a shame that Delgado, Kent, Sheffield, Palmeiro, Edmonds, Walker and McGriff may never get into the Hall because of the era they played in, not the stats and such that they compiled while playing. 

The Purge 3: Hall of Fame Voters

We’ve all seen the Purge and Purge 2: Anarchy movies, imagine that type of plot just with Hall of Fame voters instead of everyday people. For one day and one day only all voting for future Hall of Fame players is allowed for a select few owners, writers and men and women who cover this great game of baseball. These Hall of Fame voters have made a bit of a mockery, in my opinion anyway, of the Hall of Fame voting over the past few seasons and for much of the steroid era and that may change starting in 2016.

The Baseball Writers Association of America just inducted four members into Cooperstown this past weekend including Craig Biggio, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz but that may change for better or worse going forward. Under the old rules you had lifetime voting rights no matter how far removed you were from covering the game but a purge is going on with the Hall of Fame voters. Under the new rules you are no longer allowed to vote if you have not actively covered the game in the last 10 years, a breath of fresh air for the more progressive fans of the game.

This by no means will eliminate the “character clause” that is keeping many steroid users, suspected steroid users and players out of the Hall but it is a definite step in the right direction. In 2016 I don’t expect the likes of Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro and others to make the game but it may help those borderline cases in Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza finally make the Hall despite their undeserved “ties” to the steroid era in general. 

Alex Rodriguez Didn't Taint The 3,000 Hit Club

When Alex Rodriguez hit a home run in the top of the 1^st inning off Detroit’s Justin Verlander there was a mixed bag of reactions. Many were happy for Alex and for his accomplishment but some, including Zack Hample who caught the 3,000^th hit, were not so happy about the milestone. There were many opinions thrown out there that ranged from the mindset that he would have reached the plateau anyway without PED’s to that he is a lying, cheating scumbag that has ruined the legacy that is the 3,000 hit club. While 28 players have reached the milestone before Alex you cannot say with a straight face that all 28 of them didn’t do their own part in tarnishing the legacy themselves.

Pete Rose leads Major League Baseball history with 4,256 hits in his career and will join the likes of Rafael Palmeiro, who failed a steroids test, and Rodriguez in the all-exclusive “I hit 3,000 hits but I’m not going to the Hall of Fame” club. Rose was banned from the sport for betting on games while he was a manager of the Cincinnati Reds and new evidence suggests he may have been betting on games heavily while he was still playing in 1986. Palmeiro finished with 3,020 hits in his career but will be more remembered for him wagging his finger at a Congressional committee stating that he never used steroids, period. Less than five months later the positive test hit the news and my collection of his baseball cards were worthless.

Ty Cobb finished his career with 4,189 hits after bragging that he killed a drifter in 1912. Cobb also once jumped into the seats to beat up a disabled heckler that we once covered in our “This Day in New York Yankees History” blog. Cobb also confessed that games were fixed in 1919 by the Chicago White Sox when Tris Speaker, who finished with 3,514 hits, was also involved. Speaking of illegal activities Eddie Murray, who finished with 3,255 hits in his career, was hit with insider trading charges back in 2012 by the SEC who reported that Murray had received roughly $235,314 in illegal profits.

Not everyone is going to be Derek Jeter. Some are going to lie, some are going to cheat and some are going to steal. Alex was not the first to give the 3,000 hit club a black eye and he probably won’t be the last so stop acting like he’s the anti-Christ. Thank you.