Blue and White Monday: Roger Clemens, Hall or Nothing

Sometimes you just never know when you'll stumble across a post topic.  While listening to the Pirates post game show today, the commentators (one is Kent Tekulve, a name you may remember from the late 70's/early 80's Pirate teams) brought up the subject of Miguel Cabrera and whether he is a lock for the Hall of Fame.

I thought it might be a little early for that kind of talk when it came to Miggy, but the discussion triggered my memory of a card I had received in the mail a while back. 

The parallel is kind of uncanny.  This card from the eX 2000 release in 1997, Roger's 14th season in the majors.  Miguel is currently in his 11th season, so the comparison is close.  The back of this card states that Roger would eclipse the 200 win mark in 1997 (his 8th win did that), and that he would reach 3000 K's in 2008 (which he did as well).

Cabrera needs another 123 hits this season to hit the 2000 mark (has a good shot at that if he stays healthy), and at age 30 he already has almost 400 doubles (needs 1 more) and 350 HRs (needs 15).  If he plays another 8-10 seasons, his numbers could reach marks that we haven't even talked about in quite some time (3500 hits?--700 doubles?--650 HRs?)

Now, even though the numbers that Clemens had were quite good, it would have been still a little presumptuous for anyone to say he was a Hall of Famer.   I'm sure that nobody could have predicted him pitching another 11 seasons in MLB while winning another 150 games. 

I think it's going to be interesting to see how the voting plays out over the next few years for the players such as Clemens, McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro and Bonds.  37.6% of the vote with the incredible numbers that Clemens put up during his 24 year career have obviously been tainted by the allegations of steroid use.   It also makes me wonder if all these players on "team alleged steroids" that are eligible for the Hall have affected the voting on other players, such as Biggio, Raines, Trammell, etc.  I know that it shouldn't, but you gotta believe that there are going to be some writers that are just going to say screw it, and send in empty ballots in disgust.

I'm curious to see if the end result for Clemens' winds up being "or Nothing".  The Rocket has 14 more tries.  I hope I'm still breathing to see the outcome.

Thanks for reading, Robert