The 2024 Baseball Hall of Fame Class was announced on Tuesday, and, let’s be honest, Black baseball fans weren’t happy.
While Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton, Joe Mauer and manager Jim Leyland were all deserving and made significant contributions to the game during their careers, the omission of Gary Sheffield, in his 10th and final year on the ballot has Black baseball fans tight.
Even former players such as David Justice spoke directly against the induction of Mauer in his defense of Sheffield, who had a far superior career statistically.
Former Yankees third baseman Charlie Hayes, a world champion, expressed his feelings.
Sheffield Worth $90M: Made His Money During PED Era
Sheffield earned $168 million over the course of his MLB career, which spanned both leagues, eight teams, 22 seasons and stints at various infield and the outfield positions. He has never failed any drug tests, but his name was mentioned in the BALCO/PED witch hunt that to this day has kept some of the elite baseball players in history such as Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa out of Cooperstown.
Sheffield, whose name appeared in the Mitchell Report, told USA Today’s Bob Nightengale that he used a substance known as “the cream” once while training with Bonds. Sheffield said that a trainer gave him the substance after stitches from a recent surgery broke open. It didn’t occur to him that the cream may have contained steroids.
By training with Bonds (which was not uncommon because Black ballplayers knew each other and stuck together) Sheffield became guilty by association.
He was never, however, one of the faces of the Steroid Era. By all accounts, his 509 homers, .292 career batting average and nearly 2700 hits and 1700 RBI throughout the course of a dedicated 22-year career were legit. As legit as Ivan Pudge Rodriguez’s Hall of Fame career or David “Big Papi” Ortiz’s. Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio even.
Why Is Gary Sheffield Not In Cooperstown?
We all heard whispers about many of baseball’s greatest players being implicated in PED use, which was rife throughout a sport that didn’t implement testing until 2004.
The media, commissioner Bud Selig and MLB chose which players to castigate in the court of public opinion.
It’s an interesting deal, because if you polled fans, media without Hall of Fame votes and MLB players, they almost unanimously agree that Sheffield is a Hall of Famer. Every bit as much of a first-ballot achiever as Beltre, who got 95.1 percent of the vote.
The other troubling excuse that has been thrown around as to why Sheff didn’t get voted into Cooperstown by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America is a perceived negative or unwelcoming “attitude” towards the media and the game.
In a recent interview on MLB Network, analyst Harold Reynolds asked Sheff if he thinks smiling more would have convinced people that he was having fun and enjoyed the game. It was a ridiculous question to ask Sheff, who let Reynolds know he was “having a blast” playing the game he loves and dominated for so long.
It was his dream, ever since he played in the Little League World Series as a kid.
Sheffield was from the Andre Dawson school of baseball. Those players rocked scowls on their faces, were tireless workers, leaders in the clubhouse and attacked the game with a serious intensity, while enjoying every minute of it.
The nephew of Dwight Gooden learned early on in his career to keep his head down, play hard and avoid the celebrity pitfalls that derailed his uncle’s shooting star MLB career.
Gary Sheffield Was a Straight Shooter
It’s ridiculous to imply that Sheffield isn’t Hall of Fame material because he didn’t tap dance and cheese for the cameras and the predominately white media.
Sheffield’s openness about the systemic challenges facing MLB and the way baseball was ignoring Black American players and underserved areas in this country to build up Dominican Baseball Academies and baseball programs in other countries, rubbed some folks the wrong way.
Sheff kept it real though in a 2007 GQ Magazine interview.
He said the influx of Latin players was about control and being able to get those players from economically-depressed countries on the cheap. Whereas you’d have to pay more for an American player.
“I called it years ago,” he said to GQ. “What I called is that you’re going to see more black faces, but there ain’t no English going to be coming out…. [It’s about] being able to tell [Latin players] what to do–being able to control them. Where I’m from, you can’t control us…. These are the things my race demands. So, if you’re equally good as this Latin player, guess who’s going to get sent home? I know a lot of players that are home now can outplay a lot of these guys.”
Sheff got roasted for these comments and called a “dolt” by ESPN columnist Jeff Pearlman.
See, that’s where the cultures collide, because the Black community MLB was ignoring felt Sheff was on the money. We respected his strength and how he explained the cultural differences that led to his conclusion. He basically predicted the future of baseball and condescending folks of a particular nature didn’t like him letting the cat out the bag so unapologetically.
BBWAA members don’t have to reveal their ballots publicly or explain their voting choices, although some choose to. Others hide behind a cloak of anonymity and make choices that go against the wishes of the baseball Gods, the fans and the history of the game.
Let Black Baseball Have Its Heroes
Great Black ballplayers have been stifled enough throughout the history of baseball. At one time, they didn’t even allow us to step on the field with white players. If the percentage of African-American players in baseball is going to increase from the current 6-7 percent, then part of promoting the game is preserving the legacies of all-time great players such as Sheffield who also inspires and works hands on with the future generation of Black baseball players.
The tainting of successful Black achievers continues. It’s so much deeper than baseball or selective PED outrage or the attitude of a man who did nothing but show love to the game.
