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| Tommy Lasorda has some thoughts he'd like to share. (Getty Images) |
Former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda is himself a Hall of Famer, which gives him sanction to speak about all things Hall of Fame. And so he does. Most recently, he thundered -- quite possibly after being solicited to do so -- that Giants demi-god Barry Bonds along with Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa have no place in Cooperstown.
"To me, they don't belong in there," Lasorda told the San Francisco Chronicle. "They cheated. That's the way it is. If my brother did that, I'd say the same thing about my brother. I mean, I know those guys. They're good friends of mine. But, by golly, they didn't do it the right way ... I tell you, it's a shame. How in the hell could a guy hit 73 home runs? I mean, Babe Ruth couldn't do it."
To the obvious follow-up, what about Mike Piazza, Lasorda's godson (though not his brother) and long-time Dodger? "No proof," Lasorda said. "I've got to say he didn't take it."
He's right that there's no proof against Piazza. And those who leave Piazza, an obvious Hall-of-Famer on the merits, off the ballot because of half-baked suspicions are doing a disservice to the process. But perhaps Lasorda should apply the same skepticism toward the case against Sosa, which is built around nothing more than a one-off blind item in the New York Times.
Of course, with regard to this issue, consistency died a swift death long ago.
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