2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

You are allowed 10 votes.  My picks in BOLD.

• Garret Anderson 
• Brad Ausmus 
• Jeff Bagwell 
• Barry Bonds 
• Luis Castillo
• Roger Clemens 
• David Eckstein 
• Jim Edmonds
• Nomar Garciaparra
• Troy Glaus
• Ken Griffey Jr.
• Mark Grudzielanek 
• Mike Hampton
• Trevor Hoffman 
• Jason Kendall 
• Jeff Kent
• Mike Lowell
• Edgar Martinez 
• Fred McGriff
• Mark McGwire 
• Mike Mussina 
• Mike Piazza 
• Tim Raines
• Curt Schilling 
• Gary Sheffield 
• Lee Smith
• Sammy Sosa
• Mike Sweeney 
• Alan Trammell 
• Billy Wagner
• Larry Walker 
• Randy Winn

My Pretend Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

The 2015 Baseball Hall of Fame Class will be announced on Tuesday.  BBWAA members are allowed to vote for 10.  Here's who I would pick...

• Barry Bonds
• Pedro Martinez
• Roger Clemens
• Randy Johnson
• John Smoltz
• Curt Schilling
• Jeff Bagwell
• Mike Piazza
• Gary Sheffield
• Sammy Sosa

Toughest Omissions: Tim Raines, Mike Mussina, Edgar Martinez 

MLB All-Roids Team

It has to be players that tested positive, were on the Mitchell report, Balco, Biogensis or the like.  Even though you can assume everyone was/is on it we're only going with the "real" PED guys.

P- Roger Clemens
C- Benito Santiago
1B- Mark McGwire
2B- Chuck Knoblauch
3B- Ken Caminiti
SS- Alex Rodriguez
OF- Barry Bonds
OF- Gary Sheffield
OF- Manny Ramirez
DH- David Ortiz

Lineup:
1. Chuck Knoblauch
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Barry Bonds
4. Manny Ramirez
5. David Ortiz
6. Gary Sheffield
7. Mark McGwire
8. Ken Caminiti
9. Benito Santiago

Bench:
OF- Ryan Braun
OF- Jose Canseco
OF- Sammy Sosa
OF- Juan Gonzalez
1B- Rafael Palmeiro
1B- Jason Giambi
2B- Brian Roberts
SS- Miguel Tejada
3B- Matt Williams

Rotation/Bullpen
Roger Clemens
Andy Pettitte
Bartolo Colon
Gio Gonzalez
Kevin Brown
Denny Neagle
Kent Merker
Eric Gagne
Ryan Franklin

I'm sure I forgot guys too, but that's a heck of a squad!

Rocket Man

If you're looking for a professional review of what happened with Roger Clemens on Wednesday, go elsewhere. If you're looking for a smart lawyer who knows what legally happened at Clemens' hearing on Wednesday, keep searching. If you're looking for a not-so-intelligent opinion from a not-so-smart Boston sports fan who's in his 6th year of undergraduate at Bridgewater State College, then you've come to the right place.

I'm not going to pretend to know anything about the legal ramifications Roger Clemens or Brian McNamee could face, I'm just going to give my opinion of what I watched on Wednesday. And what I watched was an embarrassment. It's been two days since it was on, and I'm too lazy to look up stuff that happened, so don't mind me if I "misremembered" some of the details that took place.

I turned on the hearing about halfway through. From what I gathered, each congressman that was there had five minutes to grill either McNamee or Clemens. I saw things come from both angles. I saw one congressman think it was his own stand up comedy act, as he started making jokes and everyone was laughing.

I thought this was supposed to be some sort of serious hearing?

I also saw a woman, representing the state of New York, start her statement off by thanking Clemens for all the wonderful things he did on the field for the Yankee organization and off the field in the community.

What a joke.

Then, one congressman, at the end of his statement, proceeded to ask Roger what hat he was going to wear into the Hall of Fame.

It became laughable.

The one thing I do know, however, is that you can't tamper a witness (at least I think that's the phrase). I know this nanny was thrown under the proverbial bus by McNamee's vivid account. So vivid, in fact, at one point I thought he was reading from an old script he dug up from his days as an aspiring screenwriter in the porn industry.

But the bottom line is this nanny was supposed to be a key witness in this whole hearing. Knowing all this, Roger and his legal team went on to call her and invite her to his house. When this was brought up at the hearing, Roger claims he was "trying to help you guys out". Right. He was trying to get in touch with her for a cup of tea and not talk about the upcoming hearing so they could get their story straight.

The best part is, after he said he was trying to help congress out, the guy leading congress says "I understand you were trying to help us out, thank you". Thank you?!?! Come on now. If he was in a real courtroom, the judge would have looked at him and said "Mr. Clemens, if you ever obviously lie to me and try to embarrass me in my courtroom again, I will have you hung, is that understood?"

Meanwhile, you have Mr. McNamee. He sits there, gets badgered by Congress and Clemens, and sits there and takes it like a man. Doesn't ever get his back up, like Clemens and his legal team did. He just sits there calm, answers every question, and continues to cooperate. Doesn't break any rules outside of the hearing, and provides evidence as much as he can. Has he lied in the past? Of course, he admitted that. Would he make this up though? I don't think so.

Like I said, I'm not the brightest bulb to be writing about some sort of legal hearing. I'm the kid who failed a class titled Sexuality last semester, and I love sex! But I can give the average man's opinion on this whole matter. Roger Clemens has always been about himself, his whole career. He wanted the limelight, and he wanted it to be about himself. He was always bigger than the team. Now, his good friend, Andy Pettitte is against him, along with Chuck Knoblauch.

Once again, it's Roger all by himself. It's all about him now. This time, I couldn't be happier.

-BJal