If Clemens doesn’t get in, it becomes a Hall of Shame

Roger Clemens was the greatest pitcher of his generation. The only person who comes close to Clemens is Randy Johnson, Clemens won seven Cy Young awards, more than any other pitcher in history. He made the all-star team 11 times and was on two world championship teams. He ranks ninth among all pitchers in major league history in wins. Of those with more wins, only Greg Maddux (with one more win than Clemens, 355-354), is not in baseball’s Hall of Fame and you can bet your bottom dollar that will be remedied as soon as Maddux becomes eligible. Only two pitchers in baseball history, Nolan Ryan and the aforementioned Johnson, struck out more batters. Clemens is the poster child for a slam dunk entry into the Hall of Fame.

However, there’s more than a mere handful of pompous baseball beat writers – the bums who have the ultimate say-so on who gets into the Hall and who is blacklisted – that are going to keep Clemens out because they believe from their self-constructed lofty perches they know more than the jury that acquitted Clemens this week of perjury charges stemming from his emphatic denial before Congress that he was injected with steroids.

These writers are two-faced sanctimonious hypocrites. Let’s see. They voted Gaylord Perry into the Hall of Fame, a pitcher who achieved all his success by throwing illegal pitches. Manager Leo Durocher, a close friend of gangster Bugsy Siegel, someone who regularly allowed professional gamblers into his clubhouse, and the person who set up the complex scheme of stealing opposing catcher’s signals that allowed his New York Giants to win the 1951 National League pennant, is also a member of the Hall of Fame.

If these outlaws and cheaters are permitted entry, then Clemens better be voted in as well or the Hall becomes what Groucho Marx once called "a mockery, a sham, a mockery of a sham."

Not only that, the Hall deserves to be boycotted by all true baseball fans if Clemens is denied entry. Simply don’t go to Cooperstown, N.Y. Don’t support an outfit that denies entry to the greatest ballplayers of this or any other era, just because a group of prejudiced sportswriters placed themselves on a pedestal above the law.