biggentleben

Young Vlad is probably alongside young Andruw Jones as the most dynamic players I've ever witnessed in 30+ years of baseball viewing. Vlad at the plate was incredible, and his defense was the stuff of legends in right. Jones was more unseen before in the field and had dynamic ability offensively, whereas Vlad's bat was the thing that always stood out to me. Probably part of being AL/NL, but seeing Vlad for so many years made him an easy guy to vote in.

The biggest drop off guy I'm still dumbfounded by is Lofton. That will confound me until he ends up being put in by the Veteran's Committee as deserved.

Then again, you get into BALCO. That's not MLB-related. That's again outside of the MLB. Not a failed MLB test, but something outside of it. If baseball wanted the information strong enough (as they showed with their illegal activities in Florida), they could have gotten it to punish Bonds. They did not do that, and depending on who you believe about the BALCO case (my sister-in-law's divorce proceedings and two of the subsequent custody hearings are sealed until the children are 18, so there are lots of things that can be completely innocuous that end up sealing court records), Bonds was there discussing the deception and what he saw of the defendants, never actually implicating once that he took anything illegal. Mantle has a legit discussion about a doctor using pure testosterone as part of an injection he gave him on a daily basis for over a year. Not a PED, not even a steroid, but pure testosterone. The doctor admitted it to multiple people in his life, however he is no longer alive to give credence to or refute the story. Should we then remove Mantle? In all seriousness, it has about as much carrying power as BALCO.

However, there have been many people who have refuted the "leaked" list with many of the names on that list, so there is not definitive proof. That list was never officially given to the media by MLB or the MLBPA, so neither side has ever stated that the names on that list are even accurate. Some players have admitted to things or have done further damage by getting suspended since, but that's a whole other thing.

Bonds never failed a test. What he has said/done outside of the game, just like Schilling (as little respect as I have for his political stances), should have no bearing on his candidacy. If he was found guilty by the game, and he was in the game while testing was around, then there'd be something to claim, like with Manny, but that stance with Bonds also falls short as well.

Good news is that many of those types are losing their votes each year.

The worst part is that people like that send in a blank ballot and skew the percentages...

After transcribing over 50,000 words of interviews for the piece, my final version of my look into what happened to offense in the "steroid era": https://calltothepen.com/2017/01/17/mlb-exactly-happened-offense-1990s/

Nothing like Brewster, but he is not tremendously far off of Mason, and that is what scares me quite a bit.

Akin to Mason.... Having played through that **** show, the only real positive is that he brought in Alex Gibb to innovate the line play (and therefore the running game), but that was due to Gibb's son being on staff already when Mason came in and Mason being smart enough to promote him on the defensive staff.

Fleck feels like Glen Mason - hot coach of the moment, going to be hard to let it go because he'll likely still have success to a certain degree.

Palmeiro isn't on the ballot.

I'm always curious how many people have been to the Hall. It is fairly difficult to argue the inclusion/exclusion stuff in the same light once you've been there and found that Barry Bonds is displayed more often and more prominently than his own godfather. The biggest display when I visited of any single player (outside of Hank Aaron, because it was the anniversary of 715) was a roughly 8' tall Pete Rose diving head first into a bag. Roger Clemens was in multiple places in the museum. Yet, when I visited, Harmon Killebrew, Warren Spahn, and Jimmie Foxx were only displayed on their plaques, which are essentially displayed in an elaborate walk-in closet that my wife walked right past and into the gift shop, not paying any mind to the plaques, which tells you just how they appear to the natural flow of the rest of the museum. Yet we spend hours typing up and researching hard core arguments about why someone should or should not have a plaque in a closet...Bonds, Clemens, Rose, Shoeless Joe, they're all on display in the Hall no matter the rotation of the Hall. Heck, McGwire and Sosa figure prominently as well, and I'm sure in 2018, they'll be featured quite a bit, whether or not they have a plaque.

Certainly, though I think there is plenty on the field to question him on. I could have good argument for getting rid of him for his on-field coaching.

I have 15 with IBWAA, and I have used every single one of those spots ever since visiting the actual museum. I'm all about a big hall at this point. The plaques are such an aside at the actual Hall that I have to wonder how much importance is really even put on them by anyone but the writers. Here's the article I wrote about why I prefer a big Hall.

Not terribly upset, but I don't think anything to do with the suspensions is reason to fire him. Frankly, there is plenty of reason to fire University personnel for their handling of that situation.

Hello, Jim Wacker!

A kick that bounces off the goal post, a ball that is tipped to the Gopher in the end zone, and they're going to end up winning this ball game.

The U has a system for this, though. They are to go through a procedure where the student is reminded incessantly about how they have the right to have representation through student legal services or their own representation present for any part of any inquiry. That was not done in this case. They are using their student code to dismiss these students, yet they went outside of the procedures laid out in their own student code in order to do the dismissal. That's the crux of the issue. I do not believe that Levi, Smerf, or anyone is condoning the behaviors whatsoever, but the U has a policy on how these things are supposed to happen. That policy has not been followed in this case by every report out there, and that is the entirety of the issue at hand.

And that system hasn't been followed in this case, from all accounts, at the university level. These players were not given the proper University procedure, and it would not surprise me to find out that the University has to pay out a significant settlement to the players involved, especially if they are dismissed from the school.

How do you read that assumption into my comments? That's absolutely adding in more than was there. I'm stating that her possible role in a group that actively attempt to get pregnant by football players could skew how other players perceive her claims. I never once said that excluded her from being able to prosecute for a rape if it occurred. I didn't even say she was one of those women, just that a rape allegation has been a tactic of that group of women many times in the past, so if she was part of that group, her claim could appear contrived to teammates of the players choosing to boycott right now. I'm by no means making any assumptions on her. I'm simply stating one aspect of life as a Gopher athlete that could skew their view of these proceedings.

I don't disagree about prior history being irrelevant to the process, but to players, her claims could hold little water based on her previous position seeking players. There's also the very real possibility that many of the players have seen the video that was used as evidence in the case as well.

As a former Gopher and a former CA in the residence halls, I've been on both sides of issues just like this one. A few things this raises to question in my head after reading pertinent articles... First, is this woman one of the girls that frequents the opposite side of the street from the Nagurski Center? There were as many as a dozen women ranging in age from illegal to cougar outside the practice facility on a nearly daily basis, waiting on players to finish practice or workouts (and trust me, they knew the schedules), and they wanted to find a guy looking for a quick hook up in order to get pregnant with a future NFLer's kid. There were also plenty of your typical jersey chasers there who were just wanting to hook up with players, but there were absolutely those who had nefarious reasons for wanting sexual relations, and they would bend basically all rules to get someone into the sack with them - two guys, two girls, more than that, various other kinks, all sorts of horrid things you would never share with your daughter for sure. This could lead to many of the players having issue believing her story from the get-go, even if they weren't present. If she was a recognizable female that was consistently outside of the facility, that could be something that the rest of the team would know and remember. Second, there is a due process, and it does apply for all students, athlete or not. If there is ever an accusation of one student against another, that is absolutely the route that is pursued. It is swift, intense, and decisive, which is why taking 3+ months to come to resolution tells me that the proper due process spelled out in the student handbook was not followed for these athletes. That would apply regardless of the settlement reached in a legal sense. Third, as far as "representing the University", I will never, ever excuse the behavior of these young men. Not once. However, the majority of these players are NOT on full scholarship. The majority of all football players aren't, let alone the majority of athletes in general. These players frequently work a part-time job that they have to go through 2-3 layers of approval just to make minimum wage due to the restrictions placed on them by the team, who isn't even giving them full money to cover their education. They represent the University no more and no less than any student on the campus would represent the University that is involved with an extra-curricular activity on campus. Public perception of their standing should not determine forcing them into a different level of behavior while they're also forced to limit the number of classes they can take (frequently forcing them to take a year of schooling on their own dime in order to graduate), forcing a schedule onto their lives (while most students are free to schedule their classes as they'd like), and already put to a different level of rules through their coaches on top of University official policy. Last, those who want athletics separated from the University are welcome to do just that, however, our schools would then require significantly more funding, meaning significantly more taxes or significantly more tuition (though there's plenty to say that tuition is not at a level of true cost as it is, but that's another discussion altogether). The U of M receives significant finances from athletics, from medical research, and from agricultural research that come in as income to the University and SHOULD keep costs lower for students. Uncoupling the school from one and not the others (when a place like Monsanto pays for that agricultural research or a drug company is paying for the medical research) seems like a vendetta-based decision. I don't argue that reform in education financing needs to happen, but starting with such a drastic measure is short-sighted in that there is plenty tied in that may not be surface level to the naked eye.

...and there could be good reason for them to expect both/and right now UNTIL due process has run its course. From my experience, anything the PD had, the university had in hand, so for their investigation to take two months longer than the official investigation raises some major questions from my involvement in college in these procedures. Almost always, the U finished their investigation before the legal one was done.

There is a due process at the U for such things. I was part of them on both sides many times during my college years. If that due process was not followed to the letter, the U is in huge violation, and guilty or not, rape or murder or theft of $5 from the vending machine, everyone is entitled to that due process as a student.