Reese Kaplan -- How to Resolve the Hall of Fame Controversy

Sometimes there are debates that rage on with no end in sight, the histrionics sometimes taking on greater prominence than the issues at hand.  Whether the topic is political in nature, health-centric or about whether toilet paper roll should have its loose end on the top or bottom, there's no end to the fervor with which proponents of each side will proclaim their righteousness for their viewpoint and their absolute disdain for the other.  

It is that same attitude when it comes to the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown which brings out the virtual hand grenades being hurled from one side of the fence to the other with respect to who belongs and who doesn't belong there for enshrinement with a proper plaque and the corresponding dignity of recognition as one of the best who ever played the game.  

Right now the topic du jour is the controversial list of players who admitted using Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) that accumulated noteworthy totals in the annals of baseball statistics, but who got there through forbidden means.  

Now you could sit here and debate all day whether or not players like Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and others deserve accolades for what they did with their arms or their bats.  

Surely (as Tom Brennan has suggested) taking a discounted percentage of 25 to 30 points off their career totals would still make them mighty difficult to debate when it comes to how good they were at the game of baseball.  Still, knowing that they inflated their numbers with drugs specifically forbidden for ballplayers to use suggests just as validly that there should be no place of honor for their baseball performance crimes.  

Out of left field came former primarily Philadelphia Phillie Doug Glanville who offered up a highly reasonable suggestion on how to handle and resolve this debate once and for all.  He too acknowledges that the players in question were indeed the best of their time, no matter how they got there.  However, he also advocates that you need to draw a line in the sand about how PEDs artificially changed the way we view performance statistics.

Said Glanville, "There should be a difference between being recognized in the Hall of Fame and being honored by it. ... I don’t see why this distinction cannot be made who took PEDs and also had a record-setting impact. If we want to recognize PED users in the Hall, we can build them an exhibit, or even their own wing. We should acknowledge all of our history, both glorious and ugly. ... I don’t see why they need a plaque."

His idea has merit and would seem to satisfy both sides of the debate aisle.  You really can't debate that some of the All Star caliber players during the 1990s and 2000s who embraced the syringe as a performance aid were already outstanding before succumbing to the quick fix.  As such they deserve to be applauded for their natural abilities, but at the same time they need to be chastised for what they did in a private wing of the clubhouse.  

The concept of an extensive exhibit on the PED history of the game, including a different kind of plaque for those individuals found guilty would reflect the facts about baseball during that era and would simultaneously allow honor to be given to the best of the best whose achievements were tainted.  

If you think about it, the players who violated the rules would have a place in the Hall of Fame but not the same brass-plaqued mantle given to the ones who did so honestly.  They would get recognition and the game itself would be honest about the way in which baseball was in the headlines for something other than wins and losses.  

It wouldn't make the pro-PED fans completely happy, nor would it make the anti-PED fans totally satisfied, but compromises often require a little give on both sides of the equation.  Glanville came up with what seems a proper way to record baseball history and cite the top players while separating them from the ones who made it there strictly on their natural abilities.

Since it makes sense, it likely will never happen.