NEW YORK (Reuters) - Baseball's National Hall of Fame should embrace the standout steroid cheats of the modern day since they would be at home among the rogues and heroes already honored in Cooperstown.
So says Zev Chafets, author of the new book "Cooperstown Confidential," a history and analysis of the Mount Olympus of baseball, where on Sunday Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice will have their plaques mounted in the upstate New York museum.
"The Hall of Fame can't possibly exclude all or most of the great players that played in what they call the 'steroids age' without making a joke of itself," he told Reuters.
"It's the Hall of Fame destroying its own credibility and reason for being."
Chafets believes Mark McGwire, who boosted baseball's dented popularity with a record 70 home runs in 1998, is being dismissed in a moralistic backlash by voters defending a hypocritical ideal, and worries the shadow of doping suspicion could also block Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Roger Clemens.
These concerns moved the well-travelled journalist, who grew up outside Detroit as a Tigers fan, to study the Hall of Fame.
He covers familiar ground in detailing the dubious character of 1937 charter members Ty Cobb, a violent racist, and Babe Ruth, known for his drunken carousing.
Chafets, 62, reminds readers about celebrated pill-poppers among the major league crowd, pitchers who doctored the ball to advantage and Hall of Famers who were determined to keep the game racially segregated -- a few of whom he identifies as being members of white supremacy group the Ku Klux Klan.
CREATION MYTH
The author, who has written on the media, as a political columnist for newspapers, edited magazines and penned 11 books, also explores how a phony baseball creation myth turned the farming town of Cooperstown into the game's supposed birthplace.
He examines the power wielded by the local Clark family, whose wealth was tied to the 19th century success of the Singer Sewing Machine company, and bemoans how Rule 5 of the Hall of Fame election addendum in 1944 made 'integrity, sportsmanship, character" qualifications for election.
"I was in Israel during the McGwire-Sosa chase," said Chafets, who moved there at age 20, served as director of the Government Press Office under Prime Minister Menachem Begin and was a founding editor of the Jerusalem Report magazine.
"I used to stay up late at night with friends of mine listening to radio broadcasts of that home-run race. It was thrilling. Then along comes somebody that says: "He was taking this, he was taking that, so it doesn't count'.
"Well, excuse me, but I think it counts. And I don't want to be told it doesn't count. Tell me if the guy was using something. Okay, fine. But don't tell me it doesn't count."
McGwire, who is eighth on the career home-run list with 583 and admitted to using steroids precursor androstenedione, got 23.5 percent of the vote in his first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame in 2007 with 75 percent of sportswriters' votes needed for election. He had 23.6 percent in 2008 and 21.9 this year.
Chafets, who detailed gambling mischief by Hall of Famers, also stumps for all-time hits leader Pete Rose, banned for betting on baseball, besides making the case that widespread use of performance enhancers leveled the playing field.
A senate report two years ago identified 85 former and contemporary players as being linked, in varying degrees, to the illegal use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.
ROMANTIC IDEAL
"In a society where everybody uses performance enhancers -- students, teachers, pilots, lawyers, guys trying to make love to their wives -- you're saying only baseball players should not be able to improve performance using chemical substances?" Chafets said.
"I'm not a proponent of steroids, I don't take steroids. But there are a lot of people who have demonized drugs and they have turned baseball into some kind of ancestor worship."
Chafets said holding modern-day players to a romantic 19th century ideal of purity could hurt the game's fan base.
"I think a lot of baseball fans, especially younger fans and African American fans, and maybe now with Hispanic fans too, they see this hypocrisy and this longing for an America which they don't relate to, that probably never existed in the first place," he said. "And they're turned off by it.
"The Hall of Fame encourages this, it presents itself as a quasi-religious institution. People go there on pilgrimages, it's a shrine. If you're elected, you're enshrined. You become an immortal."
The author noted the sport had changed every decade in the last century in more radical ways than steroids, making comparison between generations difficult. He listed advances in equipment and medical treatment, then used broader strokes.
"Baseball was once segregated; it's now integrated. It was once only on the East coast and now it's national. It was once only American players; now a third of them are foreigners.
"It was once played in the day and now they play at night. A dozen things you can point to that were bigger changes than substances," said Chafets. "That's baseball."
(Editing by Clare Fallon; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
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