Commentary: McGwire faces big letdowns

If Tuesday’s vote is any indication, Mark McGwire might never be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Enough Hall voters put McGwire on their ballots, however, to keep him in baseball purgatory for years to come.

McGwire collected a paltry 23.5 percent of the votes in this year’s Baseball Writers Association of America Hall of Fame election, 281 votes away from election. His 583 home runs and then-record 70 round-trippers in 1998 were clearly not enough to offset the public damage he inflicted on himself two years ago during the Congressional steroid hearings.

But by getting more votes than 288-game winner Tommy John or 10-time All-Star Steve Garvey, McGwire is in the unenviable position of remaining on the BBWAA ballot for almost two decades. The only way off is to receive less than 5 percent of the vote in a subsequent election – or to cross the 75-percent barrier and get into Cooperstown.

Neither seems likely. BBWAA voters usually stick to their guns, and McGwire is likely to keep getting support from the 128 writers who put him on their ballot this year. But so few players make the jump from the 20-percent range to election – 2006 inductee Bruce Sutter is one of only a handful to cross that line – that McGwire could be subjected to 14 more years of the national spotlight every January.

Meanwhile, the annual electees will be subject to endless questions about Big Mac – just as a previous generation of Hall of Famers were peppered with questions about Pete Rose.

“At the winter meetings I said I wasn’t qualified to make a judgment on Mark McGwire,” said Cal Ripken Jr. during his inductee teleconference on Tuesday. “The better explanation is that I don’t think it’s my place to pass judgment.

“I’m not resentful, but sometimes it makes you feel uncomfortable when you’re asked these questions.”

Get used to it, Cal. Or just ask Johnny Bench how sick he is of answering questions about Rose. These controversies never seem to die.

Memo to Goose Gossage and Jim Rice: 2008 seems to be your year in Cooperstown. But until baseball gets out from under this steroids-laced cloud, Mark McGwire is going to be the story in Cooperstown.