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In what’s going to most certainly be considered as a robust assertion in opposition to baseball’s so-called steroid period, Fred McGriff, a slugging first baseman who’s believed by many to have completed issues the suitable manner, was elected to the Baseball Corridor of Fame by a committee on Sunday. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and different gamers with connections to performance-enhancing medicine weren’t.
McGriff, 59, performed for six franchises over 19 seasons from 1986 to 2004, hitting 493 homers and driving in 1,550 runs. A five-time All-Star, he led the American League with 36 homers in 1989 and the Nationwide League with 35 in 1992. He completed within the high 10 in most respected participant voting six occasions and was the cleanup hitter for the pitching-rich Atlanta Braves of the Nineties once they lastly broke by way of and gained a World Sequence title in 1995.
A well-liked participant who was nicknamed Crime Canine — after the crime prevention mascot McGruff — he fell simply wanting 500 homers and completed his profession with a reasonably modest 52.6 wins above alternative, as measured by Baseball Reference. However his standing amongst members of the Corridor’s Modern Baseball Period Committee, which considers gamers whose prime was from 1980 to the current, was in all probability aided by the truth that his title has by no means been related to the rampant performance-enhancing drug use that took over Main League Baseball within the Nineties and early 2000s. He was named on all 16 ballots from the committee, which rejected the opposite seven candidates: Bonds, Clemens, Albert Belle, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Rafael Palmeiro and Curt Schilling.
Bonds, Clemens and Palmeiro — every of whom had a lot stronger statistical circumstances for the Corridor of Fame — have been linked to using P.E.D.s, and Belle, although by no means related to medicine, had a high-profile bat-corking incident, amongst different points, throughout a unstable profession reduce brief by accidents. Schilling, extensively thought-about to be among the many greatest big-game pitchers in baseball historical past, dropped off the writers’ poll after making himself polarizing lately with excessive political beliefs.
The deliberations of the committee, which considers gamers after they’ve dropped off the writers’ poll, are stored secret, however previous feedback from former gamers within the group, just like the Corridor of Famers Ryne Sandberg, Frank Thomas and Jack Morris, indicated that gamers related to drug use could be held out.
Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro and Belle every obtained lower than 4 votes, however the committee didn’t present a selected quantity for any of them. Mattingly obtained eight votes — 4 wanting election — whereas Schilling obtained seven and Murphy obtained six.
Mattingly and Murphy, two of the preferred and profitable sluggers of the Eighties, have by no means been related to steroid use, both. However each had profession numbers that fell wanting typical election requirements, with their totals seeming much more modest because of the inflation of the steroids period.
McGriff shall be inducted into the Corridor of Fame at a ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y., on July 23 together with anybody elected on the writers’ poll, the outcomes of which shall be introduced on Jan. 24.
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