Cooperstown Justice: Good, Bad, Ugly. McGriff, Palmeiro, Belle.

Brian Kenny has turned his program on MLB Network into a persistent presentation of recent players who Kenny thinks deserve "Cooperstown Justice", Kenny's term: if not actual election into the baseball Hall of Fame, then at least serious consideration. Maybe even just more consideration than one and done.

Kenny and I had recently considered Fred McGriff. Kenny, of course, wants McGriff elected immediately if not retroactively. I on the other hand ...

Gehrig and McGriff: lefty first basemen with 493 Home Runs. Should both be in Hall of Fame? Saturday, January 6, 2018

Then I started to consider another lefty/lefty first baseman Rafael Palmeiro:

Double Trouble: 600 doubles and 600 home runs. Rafael Palmeiro could join the club of three. Saturday, January 20, 2018

Then today I heard of all people Chris "Mad Dog" Russo actually make not only a good point but one which nobody else makes: why isn't Albert Belle considered for the Hall of Fame? Or put another way, where is Belle's Cooperstown Justice?

I realized that McGriff and Palmeiro were lefty throwing, lefty hitting first basemen in almost identical seasons with almost identical slash lines :
McGriff: 1986-2004 .284/.377/.509/.886    OPS+ 134
Palmeiro: 1986-2005 .288/.371/.515/.885    OPS+ 132

McGriff is considered the good candidate because he is not tainted with PED use as Palmeiro is, making Palmeiro the bad or non candidate. Palmeiro is the one individual who should evoke some second thoughts among steroid zealots in that he at least protests his guilt. His circumstances suggest the possibility of one wrongly accused. One possibility is that a teammate, Miguel Tejeda, in Palmeiro's final two seasons, which were with Palmeiro's team 1994-1998, Baltimore, introduced PED into Palmeiro's system causing Palmeiro to fail the PED test that led to the ruin of Palmeiro.

An irony is that if Palmeiro had never returned to Baltimore for the 2004-2005 seasons, Palmeiro would probably have already been elected to the Hall of Fame. Palmeiro would still have well over 500 home runs but not 3,000 hits. More importantly, Palmeiro would never have failed a test for PED.

Which leaves us with the ill tempered Albert Belle. Had Belle been friendly with the media, Belle might have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. This is ugly, not because Belle treated media people badly, but because the media people are so biased and oblivious.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Stars: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef