One looked like the before picture in a P90X commercial. The other appeared significantly less schlumpy but nothing about his physique or his fastball screamed, “chemical mutant.”
Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine were elected to the baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday. Consider this: Revenge of the milk drinkers. You don’t have to be a Braves fan to celebrate these two being honored. Just having an appreciation for those who did it the right way, those who achieved greatness without a magic pill or a rub or a needle, should be reason enough to celebrate.
Glavine won 305 games, two Cy Young Awards and, most important to the Braves and Atlanta, two games in the 1995 World Series over Cleveland, giving the city its lone major professional sports team championship. Like Maddux and like John Smoltz — who should be on deck for Hall honors next year — Glavine succeeded in a time when hitters and pitchers in increasing numbers were showing up in spring training looking and performing like test-tube freaks.
“Is there something about me physically that makes you believe I didn’t do anything?” Glavine joked at his news conference at Turner Field, at least knowing he looked better than Maddux.
But seriously …
“I guess it makes me that much more proud of what I accomplished without any (performance-enhancing drugs), and knowing guys we were competing with were doing some of those things,” he said. “It didn’t make our job any easier. From our standpoint, myself, Greg and John, we didn’t think too much about what other guys were doing. It was about: How are we going to continue to win games?”
How quaint.
It’s unfortunate we’ve reached the point in athletics — and in the numbers-driven sport of baseball in particular — that we need to celebrate the athletes who don’t cheat. But the Hall of Fame vote has evolved into an annual referendum on drug use.
Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, two of the great performers in the sport’s history, each was named on only 35 percent of the 571 ballots cast. That’s less than half of the 75 percent required for induction.
Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa , the juiced twins who staged the cartoonish 1998 assault on Roger Maris’ long-standing and cherished single-season home-run record, received hilariously low vote totals: McGwire 63 (11 percent), Sosa 41 (7 percent).
Rafael Palmeiro, who wagged his finger with denial at baseball’s congressional drug hearings in 2005, drew only 4.4 percent. As a result, he will drop off the ballot despite hitting 569 homers in his career.
It’s a beautiful thing.
“I get the way the vote has gone,” Glavine said. “Some of those guys put up some of the greatest numbers in the history of the game. The message being sent is, those guys are going to be treated differently. I certainly don’t fault anybody for that.”
The Hall of Fame voting process needs to be overhauled. Every year there is more and louder debate about what to do with players who are believed to have used PEDs. Specific guidelines and criteria would make the voting process easier. It would hold voters to a higher standard rather than allowing everybody to sort of make it up as they go.
But there’s no debating the Hall worthiness of Maddux and Glavine.
Maddux wasn’t overpowering. His fastball wouldn’t break the speed limit in a school zone. But for 23 seasons, he was the smartest guy in the room. He threw outside when hitters were looking inside, in when they were looking out, up when they were looking down.
His achievements seem even more remarkable now than they did during his career. Four Cy Young Awards (in consecutive years), four ERA titles, 18 gold gloves, 18 seasons of 200-plus innings, eight All-Star games. In 1994 and 1995 with the Braves, he had a combined record of 35-8, with ERAs of 1.56 and 1.63, respectively, 337 strikeouts and 56 walks.
Maybe he wasn’t on drugs. But nobody said he was human.
Glavine was a product from the Braves’ farm. In 1984, he was drafted in the second round by the Braves and the fourth round by the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings (ahead of future Hall of Famers Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille, as he likes to point out).
He chose baseball. He chose well. He won 20 games five times. He won 164 games in the 1990s, second only to the pitcher he will be inducted with (Maddux: 176). He finished in the top three in Cy Young voting six times, winning twice. He was MVP of the ’95 Series, winning two games, including the clincher.
Success wasn’t immediate. In Glavine’s first two seasons, he was 9-21 with an ERA of 4.76. But he got better. Quickly.
Glavine referenced his ability to change speeds and locate pitches. “But what led to all that was my stubbornness and my desire to figure things out,” he said. “There was a willingness to look at myself and realize there were things that I could do better and I needed to do better.”
He didn’t take chemical short cuts. Neither did Maddux.
Somehow, they were great, anyway.
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