Just when you thought all the Hall of Fame talk was done until the ceremony in July, Frank Thomas goes and stirs everything up again.
Thomas, himself a Hall of Famer, was at the White Sox annual fan convention over the weekend, and had more than a few words about the Hall of Fame and PEDs. The New York Post was there and captured Thomas’ statements:
“They should be in now, as far as I’m concerned,” Thomas said. “They’ve let a few people in already we all know. It’s uncomfortable at this point. I’m sure this year’s going to be uncomfortable because we’ve got two great players going in, but they know. It’s no secret. If they didn’t do it, they would be stomping and kicking and in interviews saying, ‘I didn’t do it.’”
So this full quote is a little tough to unpack because Thomas doesn’t use anyone’s names. But here’s what I’ve deciphered. In the first sentence, he’s talking about Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, noted PED users who got a majority of Hall of Fame votes for the first time this year. He thinks that because the Hall of Fame has already let in a few guys who might have used PEDs, then Bonds and Clemens should be in, too.
So the first two sentences are easy to decipher. But then things take a bit of a turn. Thomas essentially accuses recent Hall of Fame electees Jeff Bagwell and Ivan Rodriguez of taking PEDs because they haven’t emphatically said that they didn’t.
The fallacy is easy to spot: just because a player goes around saying they didn’t do it doesn’t mean they did. In fact, a player saying they didn’t take PEDs is often the result of someone else saying they did, because they want to defend themselves. There have been whispers about Bagwell for years, but there’s been nothing definitive. Rodriguez was named by Jose Canseco, but never tested positive and wasn’t mentioned in the Mitchell Report.
It’s fair to point out that there’s a lot we don’t know. Frank Thomas could have some inside information beyond his suspicion that Bagwell and Rodriguez took PEDs just because they said they didn’t. But the line between “suspected” and “proven” is as important as ever. Positive tests aren’t everything, but they’re obviously a good indicator of whether someone actually took PEDs around the time they were tested. And being named by Jose Canseco is certainly not definitive proof that someone took PEDs either. PED “suspicions” have kept people out of the HOF for a long time, and Thomas is perpetuating that.
But the tide is clearly turning. Clemens and Bonds both got a plurality of votes, Rodriguez is a first-ballot Hall of Famer despite the suspicions, and Bagwell has finally overcome the years of whispers. Things aren’t the same as they once were. Thomas clearly recognizes that, since he says that if a few PED users are in, they should all be in. But he thinks that they should be in a special wing. (It’s not clear if he thinks that suspected users should go in this wing, though going by his comments, signs point to yes.)
Thomas is a Hall of Famer already, and nothing changes that. But he wouldn’t be saying these things if he didn’t feel that the election of PED suspected players cheapens his legacy somehow. And that’s just silly. He’s worried that history will forget that Thomas says he never used, while others were suspected, and grade their baseball accomplishments without that curve. He’s worried about his legacy. Oh, and he’s also a little salty about money, and says other Hall of Famers feel the same way.