The Mike Piazza Hall Of Fame Travesty

        This past week, Greg Maddox, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas were elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame. There was talk that Maddox might be the one to break Tom Seaver's record for highest percentage of votes. He would have deserved it, but I'm glad he didn't get it. Because it was about the only thing about this HOF election that as a Met fan I could be happy about.
        Firstly, Glavine getting in on the first ballot, again while probably deserved, brought back memories of his disastrous final appearance as a Met, when he was shellacked for 7 runs in the first inning against the Marlins in 2007, and the Mets missed the playoffs. He first start as a Met, on opening day 2003 was a disaster as well (I was there for it, on a frigid day at Shea, where the Mets lost 15-2 to the Cubs) In between those 2 a$$ whippings, he didn't pitch too badly for the Mets, but I always got the feeling he wished he had stayed in Atlanta. On that horrible September afternoon in 2007, I did too.
         But this isn't about Glavine pitching the Mets out of the playoffs, or Maddox not breaking Seaver's record. Folks this is about the injustice being done to the greatest hitting catcher of all time, one Michael Joseph Piazza. The fact that he didn't get in on the first ballot is a travesty in and of itself. That he didn't get in this year is a national disgrace.
          Before I go on, I need to clarify some things.. I have no problem with the writers keeping steroid users out of Cooperstown. I have no problem with Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens (two guys I can't stand) not getting voted in. I have no problem with Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa (two guys I always liked) not getting voted in. And when the time comes, I'll have no issue with A-Rod or Ryan Braun or Big Papi not getting in.
           But keeping Piazza out because you think he may have done steroids? Without a shred of credible evidence? C'mon! Do I think he used? No, I don't. Is this my Met loyalty blinding me? Hardly. Let me lay it out for y'all.

1) When the Mitchell Report came out in 2007, my father in law was all up in arms. He claimed that Mitchell's reporting was biased because he was a member of the Red Sox board of trustees. He also claimed that it would eventually come out that Manny Ramirez, David (Big Papi) Ortiz and (just to piss me off) Mike Piazza would be uncovered as steroid cheats. To his credit he was right about Manny and Papi.
      So let me play the game for a minute and assume Mitchell had a conflict of interest (which for the record, I do not) There was as many Mets in that report as there were Yankees. If Piazza was a user, you don't think Mitchell would have put his name in lights, right up there with Clemens and Andy Pettite? The two key witnesses for Mitchell was Kirk Radomski a former Met clubhouse guy, and my fellow Rockawayite Brian McNamee, who worked for the Yankees. If Piazza was a user, surely one of those two nimrods would have given him up wouldn't they? Instead we got the likes of Mark Carreon, Chris Donnels, Josias Manzanillo and Scott Schoeneweis (speaking of pitchers who pitched the Mets out of the playoffs)

2) In the 2002 MLB Collective Bargaining agreement, it was agreed that all players would be drug tested in 2003. If more than 5% tested positive for PHD's  it would trigger random drug testing. The catch was that the players who tested positive would remain anonymous. 104 players tested positive. Somehow, 8 of those players have been outed, including as my father in law correctly predicted (I hate to admit) Papi and Manny, but more to the point Alex Rodriguez, mainly by Sports Illustrated reporter Selena Roberts.
        Now, if a no talent troll like Selena Roberts could expose A-Rod, couldn't someone with more talent bring down Piazza? Look, every 5 years, WFAN conducts their top 25 NY athletes of the WFAN era (1987-on) Derek Jeter wins it every time, will probably win it for the next few times they do it. Derek Jeter is the face of the Yankees. Mike Piazza was the face of the Mets in his time. Someone out there wouldn't have wanted to bring him down? That's a career making scoop. Selena Roberts still had egg on her face from botching up the Duke Lacrosse rape story. The A-Rod scoop saved her career (though I haven't heard much from her recently)

3) I'm a Postie, always will be. Still, I consider Bill Madden of the NY Daily News the best baseball writer in NY, if not the country. But he has kept Mike Piazza's name off his ballot the past two years. His explanation has been that though he has no evidence that Piazza used PHD's, he doesn't want to get burned in case it ever comes out that he did. In other words, Piazza is guilty until he is proven innocent.
        The Daily News has this I-Team that to me does not much more than break an occasional scoop and then the rest of the time patting itself on the back. The day I-Team member Michael O'Keefe got into it with Mike Francessa made me think I was watching the New England Patriots playing the Miami Heat...who do you root for in a battle of a-holes?
         Well, if this I-team is so awesome, if they got all this dirt on A-Rod, where is their dirt on Piazza? If Madden's own paper, who obviously thinks they are the be all and end all on steroid reporting, has nothing solid on Piazza, what is Madden waiting for? Does Madden have any information? If so, produce it! Because right now, as far as I'm concerned, he is soiling a solid reputation.

       Would I be shocked if it ever came out that Mike Piazza used performance enhancing drugs? No. Surprised? Yeah, but not shocked. In fact, I told my father in law a few weeks after Papi and Manny got outed that when he said what he said, I figured of the three, Piazza had the most likely chance of being busted. Papi's too fat to look like a steroid user, and if there is one thing you can find admirable about skunks like Bonds and Clemens, is that they would run through a brick wall to win. You couldn't really say that about Manny Ramirez could you? I figured Manny to be more like Ricky Willams of the NFL, making enough money so that he could go chill out and smoke pot somewhere. Piazza was built like a tank and he busted his tail night in and night out. It's why we Met fans love him to this day. If it does come out that he was a PED user, then I have to be consistent. He stays out. I'll always be a fan, but right is right. He stays out of the Hall of Fame.
         But he has been out of baseball for 7 years now. Everyone has had the chance to bust him. No one has. This has to stop. Either prove he used or vote him in.
Anything less makes the Baseball Hall of Fame a farce.