00:00Jeff Kent elected to the Hall of Fame, getting 14 of 16 votes from the Contemporary Era Committee.
00:10Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens both fell short again.
00:17They could, I think the next time that they can be considered is now 2028 because of the way they've reconfigured that Contemporary Era thing.
00:28And Wiggy, I know you feel strongly about this.
00:31Yep.
00:31I just am so tired of judging guys.
00:36There are people in every sport who have done things that are pushing the limit on competition that some call it cheating.
00:48Some call it, Wiggy calls it getting an edge.
00:51I find it hard to believe that Barry Bonds, I'll include Clemens in it also.
00:55Look, Barry Bonds belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
00:59Man.
00:59It's ridiculous to have it without him.
01:02It is so dumb.
01:03He was a Hall of Famer before, yeah, in the whole steroid era.
01:07I think all those guys in the steroid era, like, I mean, there has to be guys in the Hall of Fame that played during that era.
01:14And we, you know, I don't know who did something, who didn't do something.
01:17I know whether or not, just looking at guys, Barry Bonds is a Hall of Famer.
01:22Roger Clemens is a Hall of Famer.
01:24Like, I don't need that.
01:25Like, Curt Schillen is a Hall of Famer.
01:26I don't care about what his political beliefs are or what he says.
01:31What have you done on the football field?
01:35That's what I look at.
01:36I hear what you're saying.
01:37In this case, the diamond.
01:38Right.
01:39Yes.
01:39Yes.
01:39My question is, though, just a devil's advocate, one of the guys who played in that era didn't cheat.
01:47What does this say to them?
01:48That, so, if I had just cheated, I would have been honored the same way Ted Williams was, the same way Hank Aaron was.
01:54Like, I don't know.
01:55I just, they got, they have been able to keep every dollar they were paid.
02:00They haven't gone to jail.
02:01They haven't given up their freedom.
02:03But they blatantly cheated.
02:04And they took, they set records that bastardized the one thing that baseball had over every other sport, which is the connection to its past with records and stats and everything else.
02:16But then guys cheat back in the day, though.
02:18And the cheating that they did back in the day wasn't like that.
02:21What's the definition of pornography?
02:23Well, wasn't it, wasn't it pine tar and the way loaded bats or hook bats?
02:27But the definition of pornography is, you know it when you see it.
02:31And what this was, was not your basic spitball or a corked bat.
02:37This was two guys that corked their body full of testosterone and anabolic steroids.
02:42But isn't cheating cheating?
02:44Exactly.
02:44A corked bat is a, if guys were using corked bat back in the days or whatever they were using.
02:49Nope, if you get pulled over for going 60, it's different than getting pulled over for going 100.
02:52Uh, no, the only difference is, is that the speeding ticket's going to cost you more money.
02:57The penalty is more severe.
02:58There is a difference.
02:59But I think, like, I don't, I don't subscribe to that because there are guys who've cheated that are in the Hall of Fame.
03:06Right?
03:06So, if we're going to start saying the severity of how people cheat is like, all right, this guy, because he did.
03:13But that's the whole process of electing people to a Hall of Fame.
03:16It's not, as I said, nothing is being taken from them.
03:19They decided to cheat and they're being punished by not getting in the Hall of Fame.
03:23But what percentage of guys do you think were not juicing?
03:28Right.
03:28I have no idea.
03:29And it's the players' fault, though.
03:30The players fought testing.
03:32If the players had gotten testing, then we don't even have this conversation.
03:35Lie detector test how many people are in the Hall of Fame that were juicing from that period of time.
03:39There are a lot.
03:40There are probably some, I would think.
03:43I mean, and these guys are Hall of Famers.
03:45Like, all right, so if Barry Bonds is hitting, you know, 400 feet home runs, and then he juices up and he's hitting them 450, what the hell is the difference?
03:56You know, like, I get the part of, like, guy.
03:59The difference is people aren't hitting 70 home runs anymore.
04:02People aren't, like, it was a great era.
04:04It helped baseball.
04:05He was hitting 50.
04:06So, all right, so he's hitting 50.
04:07He goes from hitting 50 to 70.
04:09I get it.
04:09Right, that'd be 20 more.
04:10Yeah, but it's still a massive number.
04:13It wasn't like he went from hitting 10 home runs to hitting 70.
04:16Yeah, but growing up, there was a number.
04:18It was 62.
04:19It's what you thought of.
04:20You had Maris.
04:21You had Ruth.
04:21You had these guys.
04:22And they arrived, and they just made a joke of it.
04:24You're a purist.
04:26You and Bradville, purists.
04:29Purists.
04:30I mean, I just think that, you know, we have to, at some point, they're not victims.
04:36And yet they want you to believe they are.
04:38They chose to do something against the rules, and they're being punished for it.
04:43Yeah.
04:43Now, I will say, because of Rob Manfred, Pete Rose will be eligible December 2027.
04:52So, like Courtney says, it's too late.
04:54You should have gave that man his flowers until he was still alive.
04:57I get, Curtis.
04:58I get your point where, you know, you cheated, and it affected your performance.
05:04Like, I get that part of it, but I just look at, in baseball, at that time, Major League
05:11Baseball had no problem with these guys juicing, because look what it was doing for the game
05:17of baseball.
05:18People loved it.
05:19I remember watching that home run derby at Fenway Park.
05:24I was there.
05:25I was booing.
05:25I said, you're probably on steroids.
05:27So excited to see that home run derby when it was Maguire, Canseco, these guys that were-
05:33Sosa, Sammy Sosa.
05:34Were, excuse me, Sosa, not Canseco.
05:37Kennedy called him Sammy Souser.
05:39These guys that were juicing out of their mind, but they made the game interesting.
05:43It's, and I understand it's different, but it's like the Dodgers, right?
05:47The Dodgers spend a ton of money, but they're making the game interesting.
05:51People are watching it.
05:53The players would have a leg to stand on if Roger Clemens was fighting for testing for
05:58steroids.
05:59The only way that they can be a victim is by saying that they had wanted this to be done,
06:04but we all know Brian McNamee.
06:05We all know Balco.
06:07We all know what those guys were interested in, and it was worse that Bonds was a Hall of
06:11Famer before he cheated.
06:12What does that tell the guy who's trying to break into the big leagues the right way that
06:16not only is the guy that's 10 times more talented than me already there, he's now going to get
06:21100 times better than me because he's just choosing to cheat.
06:23But that's it.
06:24But you're that guy who comes up that way.
06:26Listen, I was played in the NFL.
06:28There were probably steroids going on.
06:30Bill Romanowski.
06:31There were going on when I was playing, but I was too nervous that, hey, I didn't want
06:36to get suspended.
06:36I didn't want to get caught because just, I thought that would be it.
06:39So I get it that there might have been some guys go, and it ain't fair, and I get the
06:45part of it.
06:45I just, when it comes to the Hall of Fame, I feel like at that time, I don't know who
06:49was doing it, but there were a lot of people.
06:51Baseball, the commissioner, they were turned in a blind eye to it because it was making
06:58baseball relevant and fun because you had the home run record chase between those guys.
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