poorly for both Mac and Jose.  They were and subsequently are, in my opinon, ours.  Just like that idiot with a size 15 hat is theirs across the bay, those two are ours.  Right or wrong, they're my boys.  I watched them come up and provide our team with the most recent World Series victory we've had.  As much as I love Rickey and Eck and Hendu and Stew and Carney, I loved to watch the shots those two provided.  Dance with who brung ya.  They're green and gold and I love them, right or wrong.

Via McCovey Chronicles, a McGwire-related confession (and one that your simian correspondent shamefully shares).

Two Golden Boys in and McGwire out.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6350560

Exact vote totals from the ballots here:
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/news/2007/election/results.htm

Canseco got 6 votes for the hall.
Paul O'Neill got 12, thankfully Scott Brosius got 0.

The first time I have to witness that "little-skip" erstad does after the last out of an inning at firstbase, I will throw-up in my mouth.  no joke.

just another meaningless display of stupidity and posturing

i dont even know why I bother at this point

Paul O'Neil getting 12 votes while Brett Saberhagen, an oft-injured but legitimately dominant pitcher only got 7 votes... Sabes isn't a HOFamer, but c'mon...

ohh well, rant over... I'm sad to see McGwire taken to the rail by a bunch of guys who spend 180 days a year on the road (nothing immoral ever happens there, no, no lying either)

Who in the hell are the six guys who voted for Canseco??

Let's look at a few vote totals:

Apparently to HOF voters (at least the 200 or so who voted for Ripken but not Rice and Dawson), as to Woody Allen, 80% of life is just showing up.

No serious baseball person would rather have Ripken in his prime on their team than Jim Rice or Andre Dawson on theirs.  Ripken is in the HOF today because he was popular enough to force the Orioles to keep him in the lineup every day for several years after his performance warranted it.

he's a cardinal. bet chi sox fans are a bit stunned at low total for harold baines. they retired his number while he was still active for goodness sake.

I love McGwire! He is a huge part of the reason why I started loving baseball to begin with and I will ALWAYS love him! He was baseball to me when I was little. If I went to a game and he wasn't playing, I just didn't care. Ok, I was 8 and didn't know any better, but you get my point!

So I just have to say, I think it is a shame he didn't get in this year. But I looked at the names on the list and thought, despite the steriods thing, he might not get in anyway. Sometimes there are people ahead of you, and that is ok. If he doesn't ever get in, that would be the real sin.

What I don't understand is how so many are ok with hating a man who defended his right to keep his mouth shut. All he did was say that he wasn't going to talk about things in the past, things that cannot be proven one way or the other at this point. Even if he had denied it, who would have honestly believed him? If he had talked about it, what more issues could he have caused?

By that butt head Canseco opening his mouth, he dragged all his friends through the mud. What kind of human does such a thing. Well, maybe Big Mac didn't want to do that. Maybe if he had talked, he would have caused even more problems for his friends that weren't even involved at the time. Frankly, if that is the case, I respect him more for not talking.

Besides that, there has never been any PROOF that he did anything wrong. Again, if he had said he never did any, most people would not believe him. Yes, we have all seen the pictures comparing his first year in baseball with his last. But how many of you out there have looked at a picture of yourself from 10 years ago? Um... hello 15 extra lbs! How do we know for sure that all that wasn't just good old fashion hard work?

Ok, look, I don't want to hear, you love him, so of course you are going to defend him and live in denial. I am not stupid! I know full well that there is a VERY good chance that there was something fishy going on there. I am just saying that speculating on it just because he wouldn't talk about it isn't right. And excluding him from the HOF isn't right either.

I understand many will not vote for him because of it. And I understand their legitimate concern over the validity of his talents. But I also understand that he was not alone. IF he took steriods, then most likely a good chunk of baseball was too. And he still managed to be better than them all. As sad as it sounds, you almost have to take that in context.

Also, if we are sitting here shaming Big Mac, why are so many still praising Bonds. He is still playing, and chances are very good that he will get into the HOF. What is the difference? So many times I have argued with my friends over Bonds and found myself using the same arguements to defend McGwire. So, are we not going to allow Bonds to go into the HOF? Are we seriously going to say, This man who has the most Home Runs in Baseball history is not going to be in the HOF? Hell no! So why exlude McGwire? They are in the same boat whether I like it or not.

I think most are just bothered by the fact that he wouldn't talk about it. He wouldn't say one way or the other what really happened in the clubhouse. Isn't there some unwriten rule that what happens when those clubhouse doors close should stay there? Well what gave Canseco the right to expose those things? And why is it that just because he decided to expose those thing, that automatically means that McGwire should also?

Maybe, just maybe, by not talking about it and refusing to expose his friends, McGwire is showing us just how classy he really is. I certainly respect a person more for their intergrety to not throw their friends under the bus than I do a man who writes a book about it all for his own personal gain.

I think Big Mac should eventually go in to the HOF. I understand why he was denied this year, on many levels. But if he never gets in, that in itself would be a huge blemish on Baseball's history. It happened, Big Mac happened to baseball. He contributed tremendously to the game, and he absolutely should be recognized for that contribution, even if there is a little * next to his name.

People aren't being realistic.

What constitutes a "good" package? Some would say a Blanton for Milledge straight up would be fair enough. Maybe they'd be right in term's of pure talent, but the fact is Milledge will not pitch 195 innings next season. How are the A's going to replace those innings?

"Well, the Mets are going to have to include a young pitcher to make the deal work."

Think about that statement. The Mets "covet" Blanton because he's a young pitcher of average to above average talent and he carries an inexpensive price tag. Therefore, to acquire him the Mets will give up one of their top OF prospects and a young pitcher of average or above talent with a inexpensive price tag.

WTF???

Does that make any sense?

"OK grover, so the Mets won't include a pitcher to make the deal work, but don't worry, Milledge is going to be so good it won't matter. The A's will find an in-house canidate to replace those 195 IP we would have gotten from Blanton."

Sure, the A's could find someone to replace those innings but it's highly unlikely that they could find someone who'd be even a slight upgrade.

It's not just about replacing Zito's 221 IP. It's not even about having to replace the combined innings of Blanton and Zito (which, by the way, accounted for 29% of the A's 2006 IP total). The A's also need to replace the 196.2 IP with the accumualted 5+ ERA they got from Saarloos, Halsey, Harden, Windsor and Komine.

So what we're really talking about is trying to replace over 40% of the total IP the A's got last year after we trade Blanton for Milledge. Who wants to take the first crack at that topic?

look how much he "bulked up" over the years....

MLB screwed themselves by not taking a proactive appraoch to steroid use during these yrs and now players like Gwynn and Ripken are getting painted with the same "guilty brush". And so be it! Surely players like these two knew there were steroid users in MLB. Did any MLB players speak out? No. Did their own union say anything? No. Did an owner speak out? No. So, I think saint has every right to question Gwynn and/or Ripken. Plus, I think this writer did the right thing by returning a blank ballot.

some suspect ripken of being a juicer, based on his slugging % in 1999:
31 1992 .366
32 1993 .420
33 1994 .459
34 1995 .422
35 1996 .466
36 1997 .402
37 1998 .389
38 1999 .584
39 2000 .453

seeing ripken's .389 slg, i thought of our buddy jason kendall.  well, HIS slg in 1999 was .511!

While I don't think ultimately he's a HOFer, I'd like to concur with MVK about Canseco in his prime.  Probably the best player I've ever seen.  He could do it all, and in one game I recall him starting out by scoring a "Rickey Run", then making an outstanding defensive play to save a run, then hitting a monster blast.  Those were some awesome years, and McGwire was clearly second fiddle to him at that time.  Its a shame he couldn't keep it together.

I just figure that so many guys were using that it was the norm...McGwire competed against juiced up pitchers yada yada yada.

The thing that does concern me is that they made Mark the scapegoat...from now until ? the guys that are new to the ballot will be from the steroid era. If they are going to keep him from entering the Hall and ignore others that just isn't right in my book.

Just Say No.

To Darin Erstad.

85% and 50% are probably both high. It's a hell of lot easier to confess to a sin if you also add that (almost) "everybody else was doing it".
Isn't that what every high school student says when they're caught doing something wrong, too?
It would've been harder for Canseco/Caminiti to say, "Yeah...we were part of small faction of players, probably around 10-15% of the league, who were doing this."*
The evidence suggests otherwise. Those seized 2003 MLB drug tests that the gov't is threatening to use in steroid investigations revealed far, far lower than 50% positives - I think the figure was closer to 5%. And that was in '03 when players still knew that there was no risk of suspension or retribution for a positive test. It's unlikely that use was THAT much greater, certainly not 85% leaguewide, before that.

I've seen Surreal Life. Canseco probably doesn't use the word "faction". That was just a hypothetical quote.

You are absolutely right, the A's wouldn't be better in '07 with a Blanton trade. I also think you are right to think that we wouldn't get back a strong, promising pitcher in return - the team would be giving up something close to what it was getting in return. A rough-around-the-edges pitcher, maybe, but not Blanton's quality.
I think the trade would be made with the knowledge, even the ADMISSION, that the A's would fall off a couple games, just as they did the season after they traded Mulder/Hudson on consecutive days. But although those moves were perceived as a fire sale by some, the A's still won 87 the next year.
I think the loss of Blanton would be smaller than what some think it would, based on his peripherals. And I think that Windsor could come close to matching what Blanton did last year.
The A's would not be as good NEXT year by trading Blanton. But I think they could receive a package in return that would make them better long-term.
Beane, with more job security than any GM in baseball and less pressure to win titles from his fan base, has the luxury of being able to think long-term always. (This is a luxury that, say, Epstein doesn't enjoy, even if knows sabermetrically what the best move is to make. It's also not a luxury that a desperate, soon-to-be-fired-either-due-to-incompetence-or-new-ownership GM like Jim Hendry has.)
That long-term security, and long-term view, that Beane has makes me think that a move could happen and that it would be logical. Beane forsees the future price of filling CF via free agency, and acquires his next one with six years of bargain price cost control.
As Colorado Fan has said, it probably means dropping off 3-4 games in the standings. If the A's had another terrible year health-wise, that's an 89 win season. Assuming they overachieved last year (which Pythagorean numbers would suggest), the A's could fall off to 86-87 wins. If health was great, however, the A's could still be a 90-win team even without Blanton.
Either way, the division wouldn't be won or lost without SOME element of luck and random chance. I'd prefer we got the best value on the dollar we could and secured the continued run of success for many years to come.
And that continued run of success is an important point:
The Marlins have proved that you don't improve your fan base (and therefore, income) by spending one year to win a title and then scraping the team, which they've done twice. South Florida's memory of those two championships hasn't lasted -They don't fill the seats. You gain the most fans/ticket sales/profit for your franchise by being CONSISTENTLY pretty good, and therefore at least competing year in and year out - which is what the A's strive for.
The A's financial situation demands that they constantly evaluate the market, acquire undervalued commodities, and trade off overvalued ones. In '06, based upon traditional statistics like wins, the A's most overvalued player was probably Blanton.
Therefore it is a worthwhile endeavor to at least see what he can command, especially given how desperate some teams are for pitching.

It may prove that NEXT year is a better time to trade Blanton, for a variety of reasons:
1.) He'll be arbitration-eligible and in line for millions, rather than making about 500K like he is now
2.) He's likely to post a slightly better '07 in terms of peripheral stats, given that he did just that in '05, and now that some personal distractions are behind him
3.) We'll have a better idea what guys like Windsor/Komine bring to the table.

And now, I swear, I'm done with Blanton posts for a while.