Mark McGwire Out, Gossage In to Hall

The Baseball Hall of Fame committee selected Rich "Goose" Gossage for the Hall in Cooperstown:

A frustrating and sometimes agonizing nine-year wait finally came to an end for Rich "Goose" Gossage, the intimidating right-hander who Tuesday became only the fifth relief pitcher elected to baseball's Hall of Fame.

"It was like being hit with a brick -- my head went numb," Gossage said of his emotions after receiving Tuesday's news. "If somebody said when my career started that I'd go into the Hall of Fame, I would have said you're crazy, because this is something. . . .

Congrats to Gossage and I still have to ask why he's more worthy nine years later than he was in his first year of eligibility? Jim Rice did not make it unfortunately.

Now we come to Mark McGwire, some would say a poster boy alongside Bonds for the steroid era. Yes, he did help big time in bringing baseball back from death after the strike, yet because of his actions (and Bonds), grade school kids know what steroids are and that if you take them you can hit 550-foot moonshots.

The electors evidently feel the same:

In the 2008 Hall of Fame balloting, announced on Tuesday, Mark McGwire received exactly the same number of votes he received last year -- 128. But because the number of total votes cast decreased, from 545 to 543, McGwire's share of the total increased ever so slightly, from 23.5 percent to 23.6 percent.

There went the theory that many baseball writers were merely punishing McGwire on a one-year basis and that, after his first appearance on the ballot, he would receive increased support in subsequent elections. His actual support remained literally unchanged, and it remained less than one-third of the 75 percent necessary for election.

And this status quo lack of support for McGwire did not reflect an electorate that was set in its ways. There were substantial changes in the voting for other candidates.

I predict McGwire will get in in a few years but I thought the same about Pete Rose as well. I still find it a travesty that "Charlie Hustle" is not in the Hall because of actions after he played. It had no bearing on Rose's on field playing style and production and he was only juiced on adrenaline but that's an argument for another day.

There is a sizable contingent out there who believe McGwire should be in so I would predict 2010.