I have always been baffled at the manner in which Major League Baseball elects its Hall-of-Fame.

Firstly, some of the baseball writers of America take this as a joke... I know it was only one vote, but the one guy who voted for Walt Weiss two years ago has got to be shunned, and forbidden from ever placing a vote again. Clearly, this guy is picking his candidates out of a hat...

And it is for that reason that worthy candidates like Jim Rice are not elected. But surprisingly, my rant today will not focus on Mr. Rice... Nay, it is centered around a few other candidates not elected who get less press.  

Bert "Be-Home" Blyleven -- This guy has 287 career wins and played on many, many bad teams. He had the best overhand curveball I've seen in my lifetime (with Barry Zito, Dwight Gooden and David Wells also making the short list). He ranks 5th ALL-TIME in strikeouts... And yet he can garner only 50% of the vote... I don't get it... If this guy was on some good teams of the '70s and '80s he would have had 330 wins and his candidacy would be a shoe-in.  

 Rich "Goose" Gossage -- Maybe Bruce Sutter was slightly before my time (I do remember him, but not all that vividly). But to the best of my childhoold memories (and beyond) Gossage was the more dominant pitcher. And Gossage had much more longevity than Sutter. He pitched into the '90s I believe... I think that there were much more deserving picks than Bruce Sutter and it is a grave injustice that he got into the Hall before his more dominant counterpart, the Goose.  

And Finally, the most deserving candidate to be snubbed (in my humble opinion):  

 Andre Dawson-- Maybe it is because I grew up in Montreal in the early 1980s as a huge baseball fan, but to me it is a grave injustice that Andre Dawson  is not in the Hall of Fame. This guy put up huge numbers, and could have been even better if he wasn't playing on concrete in the Olympic Stadium. He was a great outfielder in both centerfield and rightfield.   Look at the following stats:

8-time All-star

Rookie of the Year 1977

MVP 1986

8 Gold gloves

4 Silver sluggers

top 10 MVP 4 times

 top 10 batting average 5 times

 top 10 Slugging % 8 times

top 10 OPS 6 times

Top 10 runs 4 times

top 10 hits 6 times

top 10 total bases 10 times (league lead twice)

 top 10 doubles 3 times

 Top 10 triples 4 times

Top 10 Home Runs 9 times (league lead once)

Top 10 RBIs 8 times (league lead once)

Top 10 Stolen bases 3 times  

 And finally, one of three players to hit 400 career home runs and steal 300 career bases...

 The others? Willie Mays and Barry Bonds...  

The following is a list of players who have 1,000 career extra base hits:  

Aaron

Bonds

Musial

Ruth

Mays

Palmeiro

 Gehrig

F. Robinson

Yastremski

 Cobb

Speaker

 Brett

Foxx

T. Williams

 E. Murray

Winfield

Ripken

R. Jackson

Ott

Griffey

 Rose

Dawson

Schmidt

Sosa

 Hornsby

Banks

  Of those 26 players, 6 are not in the Hall of Fame:  

1) Barry Bonds - still active. Even despite steroids will probably still make it;

2) Raffy Palmeiro - Would be Hall-of-Famer, may not make it but only because of steroids;

3) Pete Rose - Banned

4) Ken Griffey Jr. - Active.  Future Hall of Famer

5) Sammy Sosa - See Palmeiro.

6)  Andre Dawson- Voters will not elect him for some unexplainable reason.  

Of these six guys, the only one currently eligible for the Hall of Fame is Andre Dawson and he is barely receiving 50% of the vote. The other players of his generation on that exclusive list (Brett, Murray, Winfield, Ripken and Schmidt) were all first ballot selections. People obviously forget how good Andre Dawson was..

He is the very definition of a  Hall-of-Famer...  

The baseball writers need to give him his due...

My allegiances will always be to the Boston Red Sox.

But, today, I am thankful for the honesty of a member of the hated New York Yankees.

If you missed it, Jason Giambi told the USA TODAY that baseball owes an apology to the public for the steroid era. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/al/yankee
s/2007-05-17-giambi-steroid-issue_N.htm

He even went so far as to say that he was "wrong for doing that stuff."

While we shouldn't applaud Giambi for using, it is refreshing that at least one baseball player admits that steroid use was a grave problem, and that he was a part of the problem.

If Barry Bonds would have said that baseball never tested for steroids and that they weren't technically illegal in the game until very recently, I think that public perception would be different.

If Rafael Palmeiro fessed up and stated that it was not Miguel Tejada's Vitamin B-12 injections that produced a positive test, but rather an old man trying to salvage his career, the public would have been more empathetic.

But what we have right now is a bunch of guys who make mistakes and then don't own up to them. That is more loathsome than the cheating itself.

Jason Giambi has the stones to say that he cheated, he was wrong, and that he owes everyone an apology. We can't possibly ask for any more than that from our professional athletes.

And if anyone compares Jose Canseco's tell-all tales to Giambi's confession, spare me.

Canseco wrote his "book" for three reasons:

1) He got blackballed from baseball and wanted to bring the game down;

2) He wanted money;

3) He missed being in the spotlight.

Jason Giambi has nothing to gain by apologizing to the fans. He has nothing to gain by admitting steroid use. He has never tested positive for anything.

Giambi should also be commended for his honesty in front of a federal grand jury. As far as I have seen, he is the only player who actually testified truthfully in those proceedings.

Grand juries are essential to the criminal justice system. Full candor to the tribunal is absolutely necessary if the system of American jurisprudence is to continue to be the envy of every other justice system.

But athletes not only made a mockery of the game of baseball... they made a mockery of grand jury proceedings... And Palmeiro and Sosa made a mockery of Congressional hearings...

Yes, Giambi should not have used.

And yes, using causes men's testicles to shrink...

But at least Giambi's are still big enough that he is man enough to tell the truth.

I love Barry Bonds...

OK, maybe that is a little bit too strong a statement.

It is hard to love a guy who is a drug abuser, known misogynist and general malcontent.

But, I love watching Barry Bonds hit. The guy can mash... plain and simple.

And isn't that what we should care about? Barry Bonds is not paid to be a role model. He is not paid to be a nice guy. He is not paid because he treats women with respect. No, he is paid to hit a baseball. And he has done that better than anyone that I have ever had the privilege of watching play the game.

Every time Bonds hits it is an event. In his best season of 2001, Bonds was must see TV.

And he is a worthy all time homerun leader. People may hate me for saying it, but he is a better all-around player than Hank Aaron was. Bonds won eight gold gloves to Aaron's three. And Bonds was a much more prolific basestealer.

And not that I am accusing Hank Aaron of using any performance enhancers, but people always ask why Bonds became a better player after he hit the age of 35.

There are two simple answers to this question:

1) He didn't get better. He merely became more one dimensional and forgot about defense and base stealing. Once Bonds was able to focus only on the power aspect of his game, that became dominant but at the expense of other areas of his game that made him great.

2) Bonds newfound power post 35 is not unprecedented. When was Hank Aaron's most prolific homerun season? 1973! When he was 39 years old! In 1973, Aaron hit 40 homers in 392 at-bats for a homerun rate of 1 per 9.8 at-bats. The only other times he led the league in homeruns per at-bat were 1971 and 1972 when he was 37 and 38 years old.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Aaron became a much better homerun hitter AFTER the age of 35. Much like the vilified Bonds.  Aaron's highest homerun total was in 1971 at the age of 37. Bonds' highest homerun total was in 2001 at the age of 36.

And yet no one asks if Aaron ever used performance enhancing drugs. But why should we even care?

Why can't we just forget about the fact that Bonds is a loathsome human being and enjoy his greatness? He is fun to watch. And he is the best all-around baseball player since his godfather.

And that is what he gets paid to do.

So yes, I love Barry Bonds.

I am making a bold prediction here.

In 10 years we will be longing for the days when Barry Bonds held Major League Baseball's homerun record.

Why? You ask. The answer is quite simple...  Bonds' record will be broken by one of the only people in baseball who is a bigger fraud than he is. That's right. Alex Rodriguez.

It is true... Alex Rodriguez has probably never taken steroids... (after the Raffy Palmeiro debacle, we can't truly ever know). But he does something worse... He puts up big numbers when it matters least and chokes when it matters most.

Take this Tuesday night for instance. While the calendar only read May 9, clearly this was the biggest game of the young season for A-Fraud and the New York Yanks.   Rodriguez goes hitless and boots two relatively simple balls. He was probably the biggest reason behind the Yanks' ugly loss to the Sox that night.

But it isn't just a game in May during the regular season Can you think of any defining moments of the career of Alex Rodriguez? I can think of two... One is the day he signed his albatross of a contract and almost single handedly drove the salaries of Major League Baseball players to never before imagined levels. The second defining moment is the day he decided to go Mr. Slappy on Bronson Arroyo during Game 6 of the ALCS.

Is there any other professional athlete who is supposedly the best in his game, that has so few positive memorable moments in his career? Think of some other elite baseball players... Derek Jeter has the backhanded flip to nail Jeremy Giambi at home plate; David Ortiz has the heroics from the 2004 ALCS; Albert Pujols hit that bomb off of Brad Lidge in a seemingly unwinable game for the Cardlinals last year.

Rodriguez? I honestly can't even think of one.

But, of course, Rodriguez will continue to put up huge numbers. He is a product of the expansion era... If Doug Waechter is pitching for the Devil Rays, Rodriguez will hit two bombs. Throw Roy Halladay of the Blue Jays in there and Rodriguez won't hit a lick... Unless his team is already down 9-0.

Barry Bonds may have been on steroids but at least he almost singlehandedly won the World Series for the Giants in 2002 (OK, Jason Schmidt was pretty good too)... At least he was the huge difference maker in many of his team's games... At least he was the most feared slugger of his generation.

Can we say any of those things about A-Dud? I didn't think so...

So good luck Mr. Bonds! I hope you hit enough homers during this, the twilight of your career, to make your record unreachable.

At least then we won't have to celebrate the "accomplishments" of Alex Rodriguez