Now that Baseball has finally caught their "Big Fish" and other baseball players of the Steroid Era have admitted to using steroids, whether it be injecting it into their ####, or in their stomach, or rubbing it on injuries, thinking it was flaxseed oil and not the clear and the cream, the Hall of Fame voters should rethink their position on how players get into the Hall of Fame.
Forget the numbers, forget the 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. Forget the players who may have some kind of cloud of su####ion hanging over their heads. It's time to put worthy candidates into the Hall — players like Dale Murphy and Andre Dawson, Bert Blyleven and Jim Rice. Players like Gil Hodges and Ron Santo, who may have not have reached the 500 or 3000 mark, or set a record for something at their position.
The hall and baseball need to lower the bar so to speak and raise the level of excellence for players entering the Hall of Fame in the future. If MLB and the Players Union can't return the game to it's rightful place maybe the Hall can.
Somewhere along the road we lost our way, somewhere players thought they had to use other means as a way to be the best. Players should be put back on the right path. The path that was paved by hard work and dedication, not injection or swallowing a magic pill.
The game is bigger then a few bad apples, and should be a place of honor and sportsmanship, not deception and greed. If it takes setting a new standard for reaching the game's most hallowed place, so be it. Baseball should be looked up to, as a great game, not a job or a paycheck. We need to EVEN the playing field. Now! Before it's too late.
Rob Dibble was named a full-time co-host of BEST DAMN SPORTS SHOW PERIOD in April 2005. The outspoken, all-star reliever is a perfect fit for the most irreverent sports show on television.
Dibble, who is best known as one of the Reds' hard throwing "Nasty Boys," along with Norm Charlton and Randy Myers, won a World Series with the Reds in 1990.