MLB great Joe Morgan urges voters not to elect steroid users to Baseball HOF
Baseball Hall of Famer Joe Morgan sent an open letter to all Hall voters on Tuesday urging them not to elect steroid users into the museum in Cooperstown, New York.
Because the former major-league great's letter was sent from a Hall of Fame email address through the Hall's voter email distribution list, it marks the first time the Hall of Fame itself has been linked to an on-the-record stand on the issue of performance-enhancing drugs.
"Players who failed drug tests, admitted using steroids, or were identified as users in Major League Baseball’s investigation into steroid abuse, known as the Mitchell Report, should not get in," wrote Morgan in part of his letter.
Players such as slugger Barry Bonds, who set the MLB career record with 762 home runs, and pitcher Roger Clemens, who won 354 games in a 24-year career, are among those who would fall under the umbrella of players Morgan urges not to be voted into the Hall.
Clemens was accused of steroid use in the Mitchell Report, and court records from Bonds' 2009 trial on perjury and obstruction of justice charges showed he failed a pair of private drug tests between the 2000 and 2001 seasons. MLB did not begin testing for steroids until the 2003 season, and a urine sample from Bonds that year that initially tested negative was re-tested at a different lab in 2006 and came back positive for multiple performance-enhancing substances.
Morgan's letter arrived in the inboxes of voting members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America the day after this year's Hall of Fame ballot was made public.
A two-time National League MVP and 10-time All-Star, Morgan was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1990. He said he wrote the letter on behalf of "many Hall of Fame members" who "realise we can no longer sit silent" on the topic of steroids and performance enhancers.