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I've made the argument in the past that Pete Rose should remain out because his crime was against the integrity of the game.
So, if ARod, Bonds, Clemens, Schilling and more fringe guys like Sosa, Palmeiro and McGwire were part of the steroids controversy (was Schilling - I don't keep up on everything - the steroids era had a lot to do with why I stopped being a big fan of baseball - only that his numbers suggest he's a no-brainer like the other three), then the argument can be made that their exclusion is an important reminder because the juicing is part of the enormous decline in baseball's popularity.
And yet, amphetamines got a free pass. Somewhere, there's a threshold of percentage of use that makes those free passes a given, though at the height of the steroids era, there were rumors that team doctors were supplying everything and there was a lot of pressure to use them.
Being in the Boston area during the early 2000s renaissance, it's nice to see Ortiz get the notice, but surely his name was attached to it all. And ARod seemed to get special flak, because he denied everything but apparently traveled with his supplier or something along those lines, and he wasn't exactly a clubhouse favorite.
The Rose issue is the genesis of this, I think, but when you start down that slippery slope, it turns this into a popularity contest and I have hard time caring that Clemens or Bonds isn't included. At some point, those who aren't in the club become cooler than those who are.
If I were ever to do a baseball game (and I've almost started a few times), it would stop at 2000 or somewhere around then.
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