Roger Clemens fires PED accusation back at Roy Halladay

The Baseball Writers Association of America will announce the 2016 HOF Class this evening. The former Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies pitcher appeared angry on social media saying that players are to be considered cheats and unsuccessful players if they felt the need to use PED’s.

Years from now, baseball fans will look back at this decade and laugh at the idea that a collection of crusty, ill-dressed, over-fed press box types tried to keep Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds out of the Hall of Fame. On the ballot for the fourth time, Clemens earned 45.2 percent of the vote, while Bonds earned 43.4 percent.

Many members of the BBWAA believe the Hall of Fame has refused to increase the maximum number of candidates for whom you can vote because it makes it more hard for the “steroid guys” to get in.

Before all but invalidating the sentiment with his grudging threats against Halladay, Clemens professed to be Zen about his ongoing Hall of Fame snub: “I will say thank you again for those who took the time to vote”.

Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, Trevor Hoffman and Curt Schilling all landed somewhere between Piazza at No. 2 and Clemens No. 7 in the voting.

And frankly, none of the things that outrage people got materially changed, for one simple reason: 450 voters are no more homogenous than 600, and orthodoxy in the pursuit of Ken Griffey’s unanimity is just as obnoxious as orthodoxy in the pursuit of Roger Clemens’ eternal spurning.

Both undoubtedly benefited from a reduction in the rules of eligibility for the voter rolls. Older voters who have stepped away from the game for 10 or more years will continue to be nudged out the door.

That is, until Clemens fired back with his own accusation.

As both Rosenthal and Olney point out, no one can be sure who was doing what and how much that impacted their games. Also in his first year on the ballot, he got just 46 votes (10.5 percent). Mark McGwire, who held the single-season home run record until he was surpassed by Bonds, was on his 10th and final year of eligibility this year. Last year, the actual percentage was about 5 per cent under the pre-announcement figure on the vote-tracker.

Similarly, Sammy Sosa was named on seven percent of ballots, enough to return for next year – players must attracted five percent or more. Herald colleagues Scott Lauber and Michael Silverman voted for Bonds and Clemens.

Clemens never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in his 24-season Major League Baseball career and was acquitted by a Washington jury in 2012 of charges that he lied to Congress about not having used steroids.