There's been a lot of, "Pete Rose should be let into the Hall..." While I love and loved Pete's playing and managing, he doesn't deserve to be put in the Hall. He and others broke one of the most important and foundational rules and committed an unpardonable laps in judgement. No dice (forgive the pun).

Now, he is mentioned in the same breath with Barry going into the hall, all the roids, everything else...while these freaks of physical nature transformed the game and "saved" the game (as well as potentially brought it down with roid controversy) their contributions don't compare with Rose. He was the face of hustle, love for the game, grit, determination, and winning for the game.

I say the writers should tighten the requirements...they are not bound by the rule of law or by "innocent until proven guilty." They are charged with protecting the honor of the Hall. The spectre of drugs shouldn't be allowed to even smell the Hall.

The rules seem pretty strict right now but in an odd way. Since each writer is free to set his or her own criteria and the ballot is secret, setting other barriers to the Hall may be pointless.

You make a very valid point about Rose. Never, ever should Pete be put in the Hall until he totally 'fesses up and stops lying about gambling. Gambling as a manager is unacceptable and his attitude about it, his evasions, his lies, will disqualify him in the eyes of the writers until the cow come home.

The steroid situation is another stinking pile of controversy. It has tainted McGuire and Sosa, two guys who would have been shoe ins for the Hall, as well as Bonds. And it will be interesting how the vote comes out, especially for McGuire, on his first round of eligibility. I'm thinking maybe 30%; I know if I had a vote, Mark, Sammy and Barry would be waiting a while.

Do you know the full rules of the HOF? I doubt it..... Anyways the sportswriters are the ones voting, so I don't think that your long drawn out "conclusion" makes any sense at all.

Who cares about gambling or taking HGH or steroids when those drugs were not even banned from use in baseball? Everyone gambles and there is no proof that Pete Rose used to throw games for his own financial gain.....

Look at Orlando Cepeda, who was busted for marijuana use and smuggling..... He was inducted way after his retirement and the sports writers understood that what he did did not happen on a baseball field. Same should go for Pete Rose and Barry Bonds.

All of this "holier than thou" crap is getting old, because the old timers of baseball way before any of us were born, had worse vices, crimes and addictions than we can imagine, but are all enshrined in the HOF.

Ditto Koala.

Cap Anson and Ty Cobb were two of the first guys to go in, and two of the biggest pieces of SHlT to ever walk the face of the earth. If those racist a-holes got in, I don't give a SHlT about anyone else.

The standards should be strengthened, but based on numbers. If you have the numbers, regardless of the era you played in - "steroid era" included, you should be there.

The issue here is the actions of the commissioner, and the ownership group who hires the commissioner.
They acted on Rose right away. There was no middle ground. You are done unless you prove to use this evidence is false.
They have allowed Barry (and others) to continue playing until they catch them.
The issue most people bring up is that MLB didn't see far enough ahead to put it in their rules where gambling is in there.

No, why the law which was broken, hasn't had any consequences, we may never know.
The writers have suggested a plan of action non-verbally by not letting McGwire in (at least on that first ballot). Bonds' contributions to the game are more than the one-dimensional side that was McGwire in the end.

I think unless you are stopping people from playing that are in this group, it's hard and unfair to say "we will let you play, but then make you ineligible for the HOF

Relaxed.

I mean I cant believe Pete Rose isn't in the hall of fame.

But on the other hand relaxing means giving Bonds a better shot at going to the HOF.

Frankly, the writers are the problem. They don't do a very good job, to put it politely. I think a triangular voting schedule needs to be used to keep the writers off their bandwagons. If fans and vets each had a voting bloc (perhaps not one-on-one, a sliding scale could be used) then perhaps a more satisfying job could be done. Left to the writers, Rose would have been in years ago, were it not for his ban. They're on board now, but they weren't in the beginning.
Then, tightening or relaxing would not even be an issue.

should start a new part 2 hof where dopers get honored.