Big Mac

One more thing before I return to the lazy Sunday routine. If I had a vote, I would have given it to Mark McGwire.

There is facts and there is interpretation of facts. The facts of his career are all on his side. The sportswriters and the fans can interpret the facts however they please, but it is tiresome and not worth debating when folks advance their interpretations as facts. It is not a fact that McGwire's performance was entirely caused or significantly aided by steroid use. That is an interpretation. We could run down a whole series of excuses sportswriters used to distract readers from the facts of McGwire's career. While I may agree with those interpretations, they remain interpretations, and personally I think the world is a better place when people recognize the difference.

I also think the Hall of Fame is entirely overblown. People invest far too much meaning in it. Baseball stands for many things, and that is good, but it is not the same thing for everyone. Personally, I want to puke when I watch The Natural or Field of Dreams. Not everyone buys into the same interpretations of the significance of baseball. The sport would be better if the sportswriters recognized that and did not pretend to know the meaning of the game. Let it be protean.

The facts say Mark McGwire belongs in the Hall. I expect one day soon he'll get in.

All that said, I recognize that perhaps there are other things at work in the McGwire vote. The moral indignation may be a disguise. Perhaps the sportswriters feel some kind of declining authority among ballplayers. Perhaps they feel that by withholding McGwire's admission to the Hall of Fame, they stand to gain something in their work with the current collection of ballplayers. It's not for me to say. There are different ways to interpret why they voted against him.

P.S. I'm not saying the sportswriters "got it wrong." It was a vote and Big Mac lost. I'm saying I would have voted for him. And I'm predicting that sportswriters will soften and vote him in one day soon. There's no good case against him.