The great part about this blog post is that Jose Canseco has already done all of the heavy lifting. When I sit down to write about the happenings of base and ball, I hope make a few comedy jokes that aren’t terrible and/or discuss a topic of interest with some semblance of reasonable intelligence. Mr. Canseco, his mere presence able to get us out of the blogging blocks rather rapidly, has gone above and beyond the expectations of his station by providing all the comedy and intrigue a baseball scribe could ask for, bless his heart. The trick is now not to mess it up, to let the ingredients shine on their own without a whole lot of tinkering and messing about. We want to heighten the content, without overpowering. When the ball is placed gently on a tee in front of a batter, a large swing and miss is all the more embarrassing. In this scenario yours truly is the batter, and the swinging is the writing and the ball is the blog post. Although Jose Canseco is a noted slugger of baseballs, so I could understand that it’s sort of a confusing metaphor. Oh god, it’s already happening.

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- Lying about anything below.

- Taking money to intentionally lose the World Series (Joe Jackson and other members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox).

Black Sox: the World Series gambling scandal of 1919 … and the cover-up. Monday, June 8, 2009

Interview with Gene Carney, author of the 2006 book “Burying the Black Sox, How Baseball’s Cover-Up of the 1919 World Series Fix Almost Succeeded”.

- Taking money to intentionally lose the regular season games (Hal Chase, …).

- Gambling on games (Pete Rose).

- Intentionally hitting a batter with a pitched ball (Roger Clemens hit Mike Piazza).

- Intentionally crashing into another player (Pete Rose hit catcher Ray Fosse in an All Star game).

- Tampering with the ball (Gaylord Perry, Whitey Ford, …).

- Tampering with the bat (Sammy Sosa, Graig Nettles, …).

- Tampering with the glove or mitt.

- Faking: HBP (Derek Jeter), injury, catch, etc.

- Not trying your best.

- Using illegal performance enhancing stuff: steroids, human growth hormones, amphetamines, etc.

These players admitted using illegal performance enhancing stuff: Jose Canseco, Ken Caminiti, Alex Rodriguez.  Based on performance and other information, these are some of the more prominent players who probably used: Nolan Ryan, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, David Ortiz.

Legal performance enhancing stuff like cortisone, coffee, vitamins, etc. is OK with most of the steroid zealots.  Amphetamines were commonly used for decades.  Before amphetamines were widely used in the U.S. Army in WWII, coffee provided a boost.  Joe DiMaggio drank coffee during games.  What, you thought he was just Mr. Coffee on TV?  They didn’t call him Joltin’ Joe for nothing.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 More on possible steroid use by Nolan Ryan.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 Those 1973 Atlanta Braves: was there something in the water?

Read those two and then consider Clemens and Bonds in a new light relative to Ryan and Hank Aaron.  Remember, the cover up and lying are always worse than the crime.

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Hall of Fame election rules include:

Voting: Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

There are six criteria and at least three address the player’s character.

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You can follow the personal baseball blog of Kenneth Matinale here: Radical Baseball