Take Me Out To The Drug Store
(A poem for reading only; the words do
not match the baseball anthem melody.)
By Bill McCurdy
He drank so much – he could not walk
His “W”s all were waddles.
He had to guess on each new pitch
What’s real and what’s from bottles.
And every time he hit the field
To give his skills full route
He always grabbed a hand of pops
From the bowl where the team ran out.
He’s got to stay awake, you see
To give the club his best
And that’s a little hard to do
Wobbling up from a Quaalude rest.
And then there’s all the other junk
That helps him hit it harder.
The stuff that stiffs his bat and self
Is smuggled ‘cross the border.
One fine fall day he’ll hang ‘em up
And let his stats speak strong.
He gave the game his very best.
Did he do something wrong?
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Frame that question from the poem: On career, if the subject of this poem had a .300 or above batting average and 500 or more home runs, is there any reason why he should not be inducted into the Hall of Fame?
As you consider your answer, try to keep in mind (1) whose already there in the HOF and what they may have used; (2) the variable and differential effects that alcohol, depressants, stimulants, and human growth hormones have upon the mind and body; and (3) that HGH are the only group that measurably increase a human’s ability to hit or throw a baseball harder, but that doesn’t mean that they increase one’s skills to throw straight or make better bat contact with a baseball under normal game conditions. i.e., HGH does not provide the basic skills one needs to play the game at the MLB level. HGH simply helps the player heal faster, plus throw and hit the ball harder and further. The basic ability to throw and hit the ball at all still must come from the player himself.
Specifically, if the HOF is now open to candidates who were not great, but today considered “good enough” for membership, how long are we going to turn our backs on great players like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Alex Rodriquez from their own accomplishment-deserved inductions.
Let’s also keep in mind that the Hall of Fame never has been tethered to a choir boy cloak of moral uprightness. It’s always been referenced to an amorphous, but never formally codified set of achievement guidelines that easily blur into making it easy over time to induct “very good” players in the name of “greatness”. Also, longevity and like-ability have been getting a few people inducted into the HOF too from at least as far back as Rabbit Maranville.
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Bill McCurdy
Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher
The Pecan Park Eagle
The Pecan Park Eagle 
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