Morgan gets no support in losing battle
TOM Glavine sounded annoyed and Ivan Rodriguez terrified. Gaylord Perry sounded just fine with discussing it, though his words covered all bases as craftily (if not as illegally) as he once threw the baseball.
The three Hall of Famers (and the Astros’ Brian McCann) spoke on a conference call Thursday to promote their participation in the Diamond Resorts Invitational celebrity golf tournament, to be held Jan. 12-14 in Orlando, Fla. However, I, of course, had to ask them about their fellow inductee Joe Morgan’s recent letter to Hall voters, distributed by the Hall itself, urging that players associated with steroids not be immortalized at Cooperstown and threatening to boycott the induction ceremonies if such counsel goes unheeded.
Morgan, the brilliant second baseman who is the Hall’s vice chairman, hoped to place pressure on voters like me. Yet as Thursday’s interaction exemplified — and as the early returns on this year’s Baseball Writers Association of America ballot substantiate — he has managed to turn up the heat only on his fellow legends.
“I’m kind of indifferent to it, and I think in large part, it’s because it was such a big part of my era of baseball that when I played, you knew guys were doing stuff, but it didn’t affect what I was doing,” Glavine said. “For me, it’s one of those things that if it happens that those two guys get in, in particular, then that’s a bridge we’ll have to cross, and we’ll have to figure out how guys react to it.”
“Those two guys” would be Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, clearly Morgan’s two primary targets.
Rodriguez, who captured 76 percent of the BBWAA vote to get elected in his first try a year ago despite widespread suspicion that he used steroids, said, “I’m the rookie. I just got in. ... I think all of the decisions that we make in the Hall of Fame are very good decisions and well-respected decisions for all of us ... I think what Joe said, he’s been there for a long, long time and he respects this thing very much.”
Maybe Pudge has a future on “Tap Dancing With the Stars.”
And Perry, who served a 10-day suspension in 1982 for doctoring a baseball with Vaseline, said that his contemporary Morgan had given him a heads-up about his intentions; both Glavine and Rodriguez said they haven’t communicated at all with Morgan.
“I agree with Joe,” Perry said, though he added, “If they get in there, I’ll be right [alongside] them.”
The three men appeared to enjoy answering other questions, like about the game’s evolution toward analytics or about the golf event itself, far more. Morgan has put them and the other living members in the line of fire. It’s interesting that no Hall member has come out enthusiastically in support of Morgan, though to be fair, maybe Goose Gossage has lost his cell phone.
Meanwhile, the eminently respected Hall of Famer Willie McCovey told The San Francisco Chronicle last week that he strongly disagreed with the campaign started by his friend Morgan. McCovey pointed out the hypocrisy of condemning steroid usage when so many from the previous generation used greenies, a more primitive drug that was nevertheless both illegal and performance-enhancing.
McCovey also expressed satisfaction Morgan’s message doesn’t seem to be resonating. As tallied by Hall tracking guru Ryan Thibodaux, with 164 ballots out there as of early Thursday evening — last year featured 442 voters — Bonds and Clemens both stood at 68.9 percent. Though they’re unlikely to reach the necessary 75 percent in 2018, their sixth year on the ballot, they’re quite likely to exceed last year’s peaks of 54.1 percent for Clemens and 53.8 percent for Bonds. Of the nine public first-year voters so far, nine have supported Clemens’ candidacy and eight Bonds’.
Yeah, we voters will proceed, ignoring nonsensical reasoning and irrelevant threats. The only ones suffering for Morgan’s buffoonery are the very people who share the Cooperstown stage with him. How’s that going for everyone so far?