Former Major League Baseball player Rafael Palmeiro was inducted into the Hall of Fame on July 27, 2012 – in Mississippi. He was one of six former sports stars added to the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and perhaps not only the most famous but also the infamous due to his steroid links.
Palmeiro led the Mississippi State University Bulldogs to the College World Series 1980s before his extraordinary professional baseball career. The baseball superstar went on to play twenty years in the Major Leagues. He is one of only four players with over 500 home runs and 3,000 hits during his career. However, some people have a difficult time recognizing those achievements after a positive anti-doping test for Winstrol (stanozolol) was announced on August 1, 2005.
The Winstrol positive was an embarrassment for Palmeiro especially after he vocally proclaimed his steroid-free status a few months earlier when he appeared before Congress. He testified under oath than he never used steroids at the Congressional hearings about anabolic steroid use in baseball.
“Let me start by telling you this: I have never used steroids, period,” Palmeiro claimed. “I don’t know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never.”
Prosecutors formally accused several MLB players of lying under oath but they never indicted Palmeiro. If Palmeiro did indeed use Winstrol, the anti-doping test would not prove he lied about his steroid use when he testified before Congress. He could have been telling the truth at the time and started a course of steroids only after he made the statement.
The Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame is not alone in recognizing Palmeiro’s achievements. Anabolic steroids haven’t kept other organizations from honoring Palmeiro. Mississippi State University inducted Palmeiro into its Hall of Fame on October 11, 2008. And the National College Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Palmeiro in 2009.
However, the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown may never induct Palmeiro. The sports writers responsible for voting players into the Hall of Fame tend to be the same ones perpetuating the steroid witch-hunt and the steroid asterisk campaign in baseball.
“My lobbying was done on the field,” said Palmeiro. “That’s it. I’m done lobbying. If that’s not good enough, I’m not going to beg these writers who have the power of the vote. I’m not going to say anything to them. If what I did on the field isn’t good enough for them, then I’m good with it.”
Photo credit: UCinternational via Wikipedia
Source:
Brandt, D. (July 27, 2012). Palmeiro inducted into Mississippi Hall of Fame. Retrieved from http://www.sacbee.com/2012/07/27/4668090/palmeiro-inducted-into-mississippi.html
