Red Sox alum Roger Clemens deserves to be in Hall of Fame
Former Boston Red Sox ace Roger Clemens deserves to be in the Hall of Fame and it’s not his numbers that have kept him out.
What’s keeping former Boston Red Sox starting pitcher “Rocket Man” Roger Clemens out of the Hall of Fame?
Ian Browne of MLB.com answers:
“Clemens, who won the first three of his seven Cy Young Awards with the Red Sox, has all the statistical credentials to be in the Hall of Fame. However, like many players of his era, his candidacy has been hurt by allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs.”
“Allegations” are charges made against a person, that have not been proven to be true.
It is a fundamental principle in the United States’ law that a person is presumed innocent, until proven guilty and, unless it has been proven that a baseball player has used PEDs, he should not be denied consideration for induction into the Hall of Fame.
The vicious suspicions of sportswriters, who cast Hall of Fame ballots, do not add up to proof of the use of PEDs.
The bar for conviction in the Kangaroo Court of Public Opinion and amongst the “jury” of the BWAA voters is well below legal standards; so, mere innuendo, gossip, smears, and rumors are allowed to substitute for “evidence” and players lose HOF votes for supposed lack of “integrity, sportsmanship, and character.”
We can easily make a case for Clemens on the basis of his statistics. Hand them over to a HOF voter without the name attached and he goes into the Hall of Fame on the next ballot. For example, Clemens is the only eligible member of the 300 win club not to be inducted into the Hall.
Since the issue here is being found guilty of PED use, during his career as a pitcher in MLB, let’s look at the legal reality for Roger Clemens.
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He went to court and was found not guilty of perjury and related charges as jurors rejected the prosecution’s contention that he lied to Congress in 2008 when he testified that he never took performance-enhancing drugs.
Clemens denied ever using steroids or human-growth hormones. The first trial against Clemens ended in a mistrial last July after prosecutors introduced evidence that Walton had deemed inadmissible. The retrial began April 23.
Yes, two admitted PED users, Jason Grimsley and Jose Canseco, said that Clemens was a PED used, but never saw him use them.
Yes, Clemens was named in the Mitchell Report as a steroid user, based upon testimony from his former athletic trainer Brian McNamee, who never said he saw Clemens use them.
Three admitted PED users, consider the source.
All this hearsay and innuendo are completely refuted by one fact:
Clemens never tested positive for PED use.
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Once you set aside the false “impression” that Roger Clemens used PEDs, the statistical case is overwhelming to induct him into the Hall of Fame.