No Living Players Inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame

For the first time since 1965, no living player will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, symbolizing the performance-enhancing drug era that continues to haunt the game.

In the next two weeks, baseball players like Alex Rodriguez may receive possible suspensions of 100 or more games. Already, Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun admitted that he had violated baseball’s drug policy and accepted his suspension without pay for the rest of the season. 

Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert, umpire Hank O’Day and barehanded catcher Deacon White will be posthumously inducted. As the Associated Press noted, the only years since 1965 “in which baseball writers did not elect a new member to the Hall of Fame were in 1971 and 1996.”

On Saturday, the late Dr. Frank Jobe, known for developing the “Tommy John” surgery, Paul Hagen (J.G. Taylor Spink Award for meritorious contributions to baseball writing), and Tom Cheek, the late Toronto announcer (Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting), were honored. Members of baseball’s sacred Hall of Fame are in Cooperstown. But instead of celebrating the game’s history, they are being peppered with questions about performance-enhancing drugs.

As Breitbart Sports reported, this was the first year players like “Barry Bonds, the sport’s single-season and career home run king and only seven-time Most Valuable Player, and Roger Clemens, the game’s only seven-time Cy Young Award Winner, were eligible to go to Cooperstown.” Players have to receive at least 75% of the votes from nearly 600 voters to get into Cooperstown:

Craig Biggio – 68.2%

Jack Morris  – 67.7%

Jeff Bagwell – 59.6%

Mike Piazza – 57.8%

Tim Raines – 52.2%

Lee Smith – 47.8%

Curt Schilling – 38.8%

Roger Clemens — 37.6%

Barry Bonds – 36.2%

Edgar Martinez -35.9%