Baseball Hall of Fame 2013: Craig Biggio has a right to be upset

It seems like everyone has an opinion on this year's Hall of Fame balloting.

Some approve of the complete shutout of every player named on the ballot,including The Republican's Ron Chimelis, who said the "outcome is the correct one, and was also just and moral."

Some most certainly do not.

Craig Biggio was on the ballot, and just like every other player he was not voted into the Hall of Fame. Biggio managed to get 68.2 percent of the votes, which was the highest of any player on this year's ballot. A player needs to get a minimum of 75 percent to be inducted.

Biggio finished his career with 3,060 hits. A total that puts him into the elite 3,000-hit club. There have been 28 players in all of major league history who have amassed 3,000 or more hits. Of those 28 all but three are in the Hall of Fame.

Pete Rose was banned for life from baseball for betting on games while managing and playing the sport.

Rafael Palmeiro tested positive for Steroids after testifying before congress that he never touched drugs, and after Major League Baseball had reformed their testing methods and made clear that use of performance enhancing drugs would not be tolerated.

Regardless of how one feels about the exclusion of either Palmeiro or Rose from the Hall of Fame there are clearly reasons for their exclusions.

What is the reason for Biggio's?

Are the writers really lumping everyone who just happened to be born with great baseball talent, and who played in the 1990s, into one homogeneous group?

Craig Biggio has never been linked to performance enhancing drug use. He never tested positive, he was not among those named in the Mitchell Report. Biggio's name hasn't even surfaced in alleged rumors of use.

Biggio seems to think he was unfairly punished for playing alongside players who used performance enhancing drugs, and quite frankly he's got a strong case.

Biggio has become only the second member of the 3,000 hit club since 1962 to not be elected on the first ballot, and the other is the aforementioned Palmeiro. Biggio also amassed more hits as a second baseman than all but one other player to field the position. Eddie Collins. Collins played from 1906 to 1930.

That makes Biggio arguably the greatest second baseman in modern baseball.

Detractors might point out that when you compare Biggio's numbers to the numbers being produced during his era they look less impressive. Of course in order to validate that train of thought, one would have to subscribe to the notion that the other numbers were being produced without the aid of performance enhancing drugs.

Biggio is being excluded from the Hall with a complete lack of evidence that he has ever been guilty of anything more than playing alongside players who might have at one time or another taken performance enhancing drugs.

That's an unfair standard to hold anyone to.

Source: http://blog.masslive.com/redsoxmonster/2013/01/baseball_hall_of_fame_2013_cra.html

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