The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules or took a few liberties with our female party guests. We did. (Wink) -- Eric Stratton.
Otter didn't mind admitting a little guilt when he shouted "Point of parliamentary procedure!" and spoke before the Intra-Fraternity Council. He knew Dean Wormer and Greg Marmalard had him and his "sick Delta buddies" cold on a number of fronts. But he wasn't out to launch a defense of past escapades. What was done was done. Nope, Otter wanted to look ahead.
OK, what he really wanted to do was stick it to Wormer and the tight-ass Omegas. But his actions have real-life parallels, especially when seen through the prism of the Mark McGwire Hall of Fame imbroglio. Back in March 2005, when McGwire took his seat at the table in front of the Congressional committee charged with investigating steroid abuse in Majoke League Baseball, he tried to hide.
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| Who could ever forget "I'm not here to talk about the past"? (Getty Images) |
Too bad everybody else has history on their minds. McGwire's fatal mistake -- at least from an image standpoint -- was that failing to address the problem cost him more than admitting any needle-sticking shenanigans and begging forgiveness would have. As he stands before the august group of Hall of Fame voters, stripped of any goodwill generated from Baseball's Summer of Love, McGwire must withstand the backlash from those who refuse to include him on a ballot because of his suspected steroid abuse. And, judging by the early returns, that ire will be substantial and certainly enough to keep the slugger out of Cooperstown, at least for the immediate future.
But El Hombre is not here to talk about the past. He's not even here to discuss steroids, believe it or not. The topic for today is McGwire's body of work, and whether it is sufficient to gain him admittance into the Hall, juice or not.
At first glance, McGwire is an easy first-ballot inductee. By hitting 583 homers, he satisfied one dead-lock criteria for Hall admittance. Hit 500 taters, and you're there. Even Eddie Murray, as prickly a pear as there has been in a clubhouse, earned his way in back in '03, thanks in large part to 504 dingers and 3,255 hits, another Cooperstown bell-ringing statistic.
If we're just going by the long ball, McGwire deserves a spot. But a closer look at Big Mac's résumé indicates that he's not necessarily Hall-worthy, at least not on the first ballot. And maybe not on the second. Juice, andro, creatine, "special vitamins" or not, the guy wasn't exactly a complete player. He mashed, to be sure. But what else did he do?
McGwire played 16 seasons and finished with just 1,626 hits. If he were admitted to Cooperstown, he would find only 13 players with fewer knocks. Of them, four (Roy Campanella, Monte Irvin, Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby) spent considerable time in the Negro leagues, three had just six seasons of 100 or more games played and five had 900-plus fewer at bats than McGwire. His .263 lifetime average reflects his lack of pure hitting prowess.
Yep, there are other power hitters in the Hall who had similar -- or even lower -- averages, but all are well beyond McGwire in career hits. Harmon Killebrew (.256 average) had 2,086. Mike Schmidt (.267) had 2,234, and Reggie Jackson (.278) had 2,584. Each played longer than McGwire did, but Big Mac's career was cut short by knee and back injuries, which might have been caused by ... oops, we're not supposed to go there.
McGwire wasn't even a big doubles guy, a characteristic of most power hitters who turned those long near-misses into two baggers. He finished with a mere 252, well below Jackson (463) and Schmidt (408) and off Killebrew's pace (290).
McGwire can't be considered a big RBI man, either. He finished with 1,414, fewer than any of the other three mentioned so far. He had 100 or more in a season seven times, and in 1998, when he hit 70 homers, he drove in 147, evidence that he A) cracked a lot of solo dingers; B) he didn't have too many other run-producing hits; or C) both. That year, McGwire hit just 21 doubles and had only 103 total bases that didn't come from round-trippers.
Finally, let's look at McGwire in comparison to a player who hasn't made the Hall -- but who many think is worthy -- Jim Rice. Like McGwire, Rice played 16 seasons. He hit .298 for his career, rapped out 2,452 hits, had 1,451 RBI, 4,129 total bases (against McGwire's 3,639), 373 doubles, 1,249 runs scored (to McGwire's 1,167), struck out 1,423 times (vs. 1,596 for McGwire) won an MVP award (McGwire didn't) and finished in the top five on five other occasions (three times total for McGwire). Rice had 200 or more hits four times, vs. zero for McGwire, and knocked in 100 or more runs eight times.
