“My feeling has always been the same – the game of baseball has no place for cheaters,” Aaron said Sunday morning. “There’s no place in the Hall of Fame for people who cheat.” He was speaking by phone from Cooperstown, where he was attending the Hall of Fame induction of Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice. Aaron has been to several of these ceremonies. But he probably hasn’t created this kind of news since his own enshrinement 27 years ago.
It started Saturday when he told a small group of reporters that he would be in favor of players from the steroid era going into the Hall with asterisks by their name, indicating their statistics might have been artificially enhanced. One excerpt: “Somewhere on the plaque or behind his name, say, ‘Hey, 73 home runs, da da da da, he was accused of …”
Aaron said his comments about asterisks pertained only to players suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs. But what of players who actually are proven to have taken drugs?
“That’s a different story,” he said. “If it’s proven that you took any kind of drug or substance, then you shouldn’t be there [in the Hall]. Like I said, the game has no place for cheaters.”
And then this: Aaron wants the list of 104 players who tested positive in baseball’s confidential drug tests in 2003 exposed. So far, two names have leaked out in media reports: Sammy Sosa and Alex Rodriguez.
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