McGwire snubbed...

One can argue whether or not a certain player should be elected to his sport's Hall of Fame, but in Mark McGwire's case, he was out right snubbed by the writers of this country.

I'm very happy that Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken made the Hall, but I believe that when you really get down to it a major disservice has been done.

Let's think back to the strike year for baseball. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa brought everyone back to baseball with that incredible run that had us all watching baseball every night on TV. If you ask MLB I'll bet they aren't very happy about McGwire not being in.

The biggest problem I have with this is that McGwire has be found guilty of nothing more than being too big. He was never found to have taken an illegal substance and he is guilty of speculation of having taken steroids. He hit 49 homeruns as a rookie and was big then too.

Everyone brings up his incredibly poor performance in front of Congress, but let's be frank here, we are talking about a guy who never ever, ever looked for the limelight. He never made public speeches unless forced to when he was chasing Roger Maris' homerun record and since having retired from baseball has basically fallen off the face of the Earth when every other MLB player who retires is trying to coach to get on TV.

On ESPN some analysts are saying that McGwire should come out and say one way or the other if he did in fact take steroids. All I gotta say to that is: fat chance. Whether not he even cares about the Hall of Fame I don't know, but I can tell you that his national appearances will be more rare than Bigfoot sightings.

The bottom line is if you take away the SPECULATION, he's one most important players of this generation. When ratings were down and parks were half empty, he brought everyone back. It was like the strike never happened and MLB wouldn't be where it is today without him.

And the fact of the matter is, if he shot up steroids before each and every game of his career, he still did nothing that was against the rules set forth by Major League Baseball. Is that a good thing, no, but he still broke no rules in any way, shape or form. MLB as a governing body is a joke anyway. When your sport's governing body has to negotiate whether or not is can test for and ban an illegal drug, that's a little spineless.

Mark McGwire is guilty only of MLB's lack of backbone.

McGwire may not ever make it into the Hall of Fame, but the fans will always remember him.