Jose Canseco Called Tom Verducci An Idiot For Thinking That Jeff Bagwell Never Used Steroids

Astros v Dodgers

I’m not going to directly target Tom Verducci here, because I think he’s a great writer and baseball analyst, but allow me to cast a wider net here. Anyone who thinks that Jeff Bagwell never used PEDs really is an idiot. A straight up dumb person.

By the way, if Jose Canseco says that you did steroids, then you did steroids. When Canseco pins you, that’s the kiss of death. You can’t convince me otherwise. Everyone called him a rat, or just a washed up has-been with a money-grab attempt when he published his first book Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big, but everything that was inside of that book ended up being true. That book was the first step towards ridding the game of cheaters, and now, over ten years later, it’s being used to police the Hall of Fame.

Not that any of that matters now. As I wrote earlier, voters are giving less and less of a fuck about steroid guys now that Bud Selig is in. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are going to see huge bumps in their voting percentages from last year to this year, and some voters who were a no on Bagwell in the past because of PED suspicion are now saying, fuck it. He’s in. Why not? He’s got Hall of Fame numbers, no? Sure he does. But the court of public opinion will put him alongside Mike Piazza as a Hall of Famer who took steroids.

The Hall of Fame announcement will be made tonight at 6pm ET. Tim Raines will be in. Jeff Bagwell will be in. Pudge Rodriguez will be in. And that honestly might be it. A 2017 Hall of Fame class highlighted by two steroid guys, and a player who got in on their 10th attempt. Not that Raines should be remembered as a Hall of Famer who took forever to get in. I honestly believe the voters just got it wrong the first nine times. That being said, even with Piazza getting in last year, this will be the class that we look back on 20 years from now as the class that broke down the barrier for steroid guys in the Hall of Fame.