I'm 43 years old. When I was 7 years old, I had already been collecting baseball cards a few years, could read boxscores, keep up with stats, calculate batting averages, etc. Several years later, my family visited Cooperstown. As you can imagine, it was darn near an epiphany. It's the only visit I've ever made. I didn't go there to see the Hall of Really Good. The Hall doesn't have a place for Buddy Bell, who came up ~300 hits short; or Jim Sundberg, one of the best defensive catchers in baseball history; or Charlie Hough, who won 216 games and saved 61. The HOF is for great players, and when I take my family some day, it just doesn't make sense to not see Rose, Ramirez, Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro, ARod. Sosa...
You guys have no idea whether Bagwell, Griffey, Pudge Rodriguez, Edgar Martinez, Ichiro, Piazza, Randy Johnson, Pedro, etc., juiced. Heck, Andy Pettitte did it (allegedly once), and he's pretty much universally respected as a stand-up guy.
Induct them all at once. Don't have a ceremony. Whatever. But to say they don't belong in Cooperstown is absurd. The HOF is full of jackasses who would spike their own moms to break up a double play. That's one of the things that makes it so interesting...and so American.
