MLB Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, who also serves as the Hall's vice chairman and is a member of its board of directors, is encouraging all Baseball Hall of Fame voters to block steroid-users from getting in.
Just one day after the Baseball Hall of Fame released the names of 33 players on the 2018 ballot, Morgan sent a strongly worded letter to voters which included a list of three criteria that he thinks should disqualify future candidates, such as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa.
The letter states, per ESPN,
"The more we Hall of Famers talk about this -- and we talk about it a lot -- we realize we can no longer sit silent," Morgan wrote. "Many of us have come to think that silence will be considered complicity. Or that fans might think we are ok if the standards of election to the Hall of Fame are relaxed, at least relaxed enough for steroid users to enter and become members of the most sacred place in Baseball. We don't want fans ever to think that.
"We hope the day never comes when known steroid users are voted into the Hall of Fame. They cheated. Steroid users don't belong here.
"Players who failed drug tests, admitted using steroids, or were identified as users in Major League Baseball's investigation into steroid abuse, known as the Mitchell Report, should not get in. Those are the three criteria that many of the players and I think are right."
Morgan added that "if steroid users get in, it will divide and diminish the Hall."
"It's gotten to the point where Hall of Famers are saying that if steroid users get in, they'll no longer come to Cooperstown for Induction Ceremonies or other events. Some feel they can't share a stage with players who did steroids. The cheating that tainted an era now risks tainting the Hall of Fame too. The Hall of Fame means too much to us to ever see that happen. If steroid users get in, it will divide and diminish the Hall, something we couldn't bear."
According to ESPN, the Hall of Fame's vice president of communications and education, Jon Shestakovsky, said that Morgan was speaking on behalf of himself and other voters in his letter to the baseball writers.
Among the players on the current ballot are Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Gary Sheffield, all of whom appeared in the Mitchell Report.