End of an Era??

The Baseball Writers of America announced the result of the Hall of Fame voting today and nobody, not a single person, was elected to baseballs hallowed hall. To be enshrined in Cooperstown is the ultimate honour and while many on the ballet may be worthy for their performance on the field, it's the nature of that performance, or what may have been behind it, that has likely kept out these otherwise deserving inductees. The two names that stand out are 'Rocket' Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. They have long been suspected of using PED's of some kind and as such a shroud has been cast over their careers. If one was to go solely by the numbers they are first ballot inductees. Bonds is (technically) the home run king (762) and has 7 MVP awards. Clemens won 2 World Series, 7 Cy Youngs and the 1986 AL MVP award. This is simple isn't it? How can guys who so dominated the sport be kept out? Well, pardon me for uh, injecting some reality here but the fact is character is on the description for qualifications of induction into the Hall and well lets face it, these aren't sterling examples. They were crusty with the media and have stuck to their guns vehemently denying any use of banned substances on their part. And, to be totally fair, neither has ever been proven definitively to have used them, Clemens even won a court case to that effect, but the suspicion is still there and as such voters are clearly reluctant to let them in. The so called steroid era lingers over everyone who played in that period and guys like Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa and others will all be painted, rightly or wrongly, with that same brush. Even next year with guys like Glavin and Maddux on the ballot, guys never linked to such things, their percentage may go down. Baseball for it's part has done little to take a stand on this issue and in fact seemed to turn a blind eye in 1998 when Sosa and McGuire were chasing records. I remember watching this as a teenager and thinking how cool is this? I remember after the fact the revelations that they may have been cheating and been disappointed, even disillusioned. I remember as more and more news of cheating leaked out that naivety one has as a youth faded and I became upset about the reality then eventually almost numb to it. How could they let them do this? My parents had always taught me to play fair and now not only was cheating not punished, it was seemingly acceptable. Now, baseball had no set rules at this time but the law prohibits steroids and morally this is as far from right as it gets. Other guys like Craig Biggio who have decent numbers (3060 hits, 1175 RBI's) but not first ballot stuff will probably eventually get in but it's sad to think that a pall has been cast over an entire generation. What about guys like Ken Griffey Jr. or John Smoltz? Will people look at them the same? I for one don't think cheaters should prosper and I applaud the writers for taking a stance. That said I think that because of the circumstances, there needs to be some exceptions. Put an asterisks beside their records, their names on their plaques and clearly state what happened or what was suspected, but they should be mentioned among the best to ever play the game because letting them in won't change their records, won't take away their awards or the fact that they went out there and performed, but mostly it's not fair to punish and entire generation because of the wrong doings of some.