Letters to the Editor
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The Hall and the Plaques, etc.
I visited the NBHOFAM this fall for the first time. Wonderful place, but as King says, the plaques farm is probably underwhelming for most semi-knowledgeable students of baseball history. You're much better off sitting down for a couple of hours with the "Biographical Encyclopedia of Baseball."
But as far as membership goes, Pete Rose knew the rules and decided not to follow them. So he doesn't get a little plaque and an "H" by his name in "Total Baseball." So what? It's not like anyone took away his hit record or the memories of anyone who followed baseball in the 60s 70s and 80s. We all know who he is and what he did and the presence of a plaque won't change that. (Buck O'Neill though is a different matter--since we don't have any official records, the symbolism of the plaque is very important.)
Steroids I think are less of an issue than we want to make of them. If a voter thinks Player X might have inflated stats as a result of steroids (or home park or era or whatever), he's free to leave that name off the ballot for the time being for the sake of future context. And it's perfectly reasonable to make a distinction between people who may have (at some point) taken performance enhancing drugs and those whose performances appear to have actually been enhanced by those drugs.