Opinions, BBWAA, and hypocrites

Normally Fridays at work are slow, so there's plenty of time to flip through the myriad of sports-related websites that I monitor from time to time. Including ESPN (the WWL in the left-hand margin site list).

Where I stumble across this puff piece discussing Sammy Sosa's candidacy for the Hall of Fame.
Apparently, now that Sosa has hit 600 HR, whether or not he did steroids is irrelevant. He's a first-ballot Hall of Famer!

So if Mark McGwire had hung around to hit another 17 home runs, would he get a free pass too?

Let's see: Sosa hadn't hit more than 40 HR in a season in his life until 1998, the first of his 4 consecutive seasons with at least 50. Odd that such a power surge would start when the hitter is 30. And let's not forget, Ol' Slammin' Sammy was suspended for using a corked bat. There is no evidence corking a bat makes any difference in one's ability to hit a ball for distance. However, it does prove that Sammy was willing to do anything to gain a competitive edge.

There are those defenders of Sosa who point to his Congressional testimony, where he declared on the record he didn't due steroids, as proof of his innocence. Funny - isn't that what Rafael Palmerio did as well? That worked out well for him.

And I won't even start discussing Barry "Incoming Message from the Big Giant Head" Bonds.

Whether or not Sosa gets into the Hall is not up to me. What really irritates me is members of the BBWAA who have taken it upon themselves to crucify Mark McGwire for ALLEGED steroid abuse (alleged in a fruitcake's book, and based on a can of androstenedione that was in his locker during the 1998 season - never mind that substance was completely legal at the time) now have deemed Sosa above such scrutiny.

Talk about a bunch of hypocrites.