The Character Clause and Bad School Rules
Tomorrow, the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame will be announcing its newest inductees, paying tribute to those individuals whose lifetime on-field accomplishments have earned them the right to be called all-time greats. While there are always many long and involved discussions about who is worthy, what makes someone worthy, and so on, this year’s discussion is quite different than any that I can recall. For the first time, there are a significant number of players on the ballot who are known or suspected to have used steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs to improve their performance and perhaps to raise their statistics to Hall of Fame levels.
I am not going to go into all of the arguments for and against any of these players. Wonderful writers over at si.com and the Sports and Earth blog and just about anywhere else where sportwriters lurk have already hashed, and rehashed, and re-rehashed all of these arguments, and many others, so many times that it amazes me that that have anything left to write.
No, my issue for this time and this blog is what is known as the “character clause”. According to the official
I am not going to go into all of the arguments for and against any of these players. Wonderful writers over at si.com and the Sports and Earth blog and just about anywhere else where sportwriters lurk have already hashed, and rehashed, and re-rehashed all of these arguments, and many others, so many times that it amazes me that that have anything left to write.
No, my issue for this time and this blog is what is known as the “character clause”. According to the official
