My Stance On Controversial Players

While the majority of Hall of Fame candidates have somewhat cut-and-dry cases, consisting only of an evaluation of their on-field performance, anyone who covers the Hall of Fame needs to address more controversial players. Throughout MLB history, there have been a number of scandals that have significantly harmed the game, and there are several candidates whose roles in various controversies have polarized their Hall of Fame debates. Here is how I currently assess each controversy in the context of the Hall. 

PED Users. 

As I have stated numerous times before, I will never advocate for a steroid user to make the Hall of Fame. I have two principal reasons for this. (1), the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball is cheating and cheaters should have no place in the Hall of Fame; and (2), the career records achieved by players on steroids are not authentic - the steroids make them seem like Hall of Famers based on their statistics, whereas they were nowhere near as good without their aid. 

In response to this second point, some writers choose to advocate for certain players who had Hall-worthy careers before they took steroids, most notably Barry Bonds. However, I cannot condone steroid use of any kind because, regardless of the effect it had on the player's career, it is still cheating. The Hall of Fame is meant to honor those who had a positive effect on the game, and steroid users brought the game division and scandal. 

Therefore, I will automatically exclude Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Andy Pettitte, Kevin Brown, and Robinson Cano from Hall of Fame consideration. Gary Sheffield, as I have stated before, is an exception. 

The Recent Sign-Stealing Scandals. 

As I have just stated with Carlos Beltran, those who were involved in illegal sign-stealing schemes will be excluded. Like the steroid users, these players not only benefited statistically from their methods (blurring their actual playing abilities), but also brought disgrace to the game of baseball, and therefore do not deserve to be immortalized among the game's greats. Therefore, I will consider neither Beltran nor Mookie Betts for the Hall. 

Some argue that the punishments enforced by MLB at the time are punishment enough and that voters are unjustified in withholding their votes for these players. To me, withholding a vote is not about punishing anyone, since they were never entitled to a place in the Hall. I merely abstain because I do not think they are worthy, and I have the full right to do so. 

Corked Bats. 

Any player caught or admitting to using a corked bat will be excluded, just as those in the other cheating scandals. 

Gambling and Throwing Games. 

Major League Baseball Rule 21(d)(2) states, 

Any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform, shall be declared permanently ineligible. 

This policy has been enforced since the 1919 Black Sox Scandal up to the present. In my mind, dealing with these players seems pretty simple - if you break the rules, then you're out. Not too complicated. 

The spirit of this law extends toward those players who gave or accepted bribes concerning games in which they had a part. This inherently undermines the integrity of the game, and therefore anyone guilty of fixing games should not be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. 

As a result, I will not consider the cases of Pete Rose or Eddie Cicotte, but "Shoeless" Joe Jackson is a different story. His ban was highly controversial and, I think, for good reason. For one thing, he didn't attend meetings with the gamblers involved in the fix, and for another, he played wonderfully in the World Series, batting .375 with three doubles, the only home run of the Series, and 16 plays in the field without an error. Although he and the other White Sox players were found not guilty on trial, they were banned from baseball by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1921, only to be reinstated by Commissioner Rob Manfred on May 13, 2025. I think Shoeless Joe was innocent of any foul play and should be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. 

The Pittsburgh Drug Trials and Related Incidents. 

While the Pittsburgh Drug Trials brought negative light to baseball and many of its players, I will not exclude players solely for drug-related issues (unless they were PEDs used during their careers). Nonetheless, these scandals do hurt a player's image and make me less inclined to vote for already marginal candidates, such as Orlando Cepeda, Dave Parker, and Keith Hernandez. 

Convicted Felons. 

Although I said in my post about Cepeda that I wouldn't vote for a convicted criminal, I have since changed my mind. Unless someone betrays his country, my personal opinion is that it is not the place of Hall of Fame voters to punish players by withholding votes due to incidents outside of baseball. Whatever was done is the business of the individual before the law, not the player before the voters. There are plenty of people in the Hall of Fame who led immoral lives, and I think it would be both inconsistent and improper to start judging players for outside crimes now. 

Curt Schilling. 

In the same vein, the recent controversy concerning Curt Schilling is not a deal-breaker to me. Schilling has been targeted by our cancel culture due to some controversial social media posts he uploaded a few years ago (many of which he later took down). Regardless of one's opinion on the posts or the ensuing controversy, I believe that since these incidents were completely unrelated with baseball or with Schilling's career, it would therefore be completely out of place for a voter to hold them against him. As I've said before, there are plenty of disagreeable, or even bad, people in Cooperstown, but what they did on the field and for baseball as a whole was wholly worthy of induction. Schilling is no exception. 

As an aside, I would like to point out an inconsistency with those writers who accuse others of punishing PED users by not voting for them, but do exactly that to Schilling. Which camp are you in? Abstaining due to merit or abstaining as a punishment? 

Reggie Smith. 

Reggie Smith, on the other hand, is a little different. On September 24, 1981, a heckler threw a batting helmet at him, to which he retaliated by jumping into the stands and pummeling him. The fan was arrested, and Smith was fined $5,000 and suspended for five days. While this incident does not completely disqualify Smith from my consideration, it is relevant to the discussion because it occurred within baseball and harmed the game. It is completely inappropriate for an entertainer (especially a professional athlete) to attack a spectator, whether or not the fan provoked it. Although this doesn't completely break the deal for me about Smith, his career is very borderline anyway, and the incident can tip the scales enough for me not to vote for him. 

Cap Anson. 

While I previously wrote that I considered Cap Anson a disgrace to baseball and said he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame, I have softened my stance on him a bit. While he was an outspoken racist and did contribute to baseball's color line, there are many more racists and generally terrible people in Cooperstown. If the color line were completely his doing, I would have to exclude him, but society as a whole after the Civil War was unfriendly to blacks, and baseball still would have segregated without Anson. Things were complicated back then, and Anson sided with the racists when very few were willing to oppose the rampant bigotry. That said, it wasn't so much that Anson was a disgrace to baseball as baseball itself was acting disgracefully, but that was how things were back then, and every period of history has its evils. If one were to exclude Anson from Hall of Fame consideration, one would have to exclude the entire period of segregation, which is unreasonable. He's still not a favorite of mine, but I can't single him out. 

Roberto Alomar. 

While I initially included Alomar in my Lucky Hall of Famers section, I am inclined to backtrack that post as well. On September 27, 1996, Alomar spat in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck after a call he didn't like, and while this was clearly unacceptable, it didn't leave a lasting negative impact on the game like other scandals have. He was handed a five-game suspension for the incident and I believe that is punishment enough.