La Velle's 3-2 Pitch: Three observations and two predictions every Sunday.
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Minnesota connections abound among the first-timers on the recently released National Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, which will lead to some fascinating and spirited conversations about who deserves to be enshrined in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Former Twins players A.J. Pierzynski, Justin Morneau, Joe Nathan and David Ortiz are among that group, all with varying chances of getting the required 75% of the votes to qualify for induction. But there is one first-timer with local ties on the ballot who definitely will not receive a vote from this scribe: Timberwolves minority owner Alex Rodriguez.
A-Rod's stats are robust — 696 home runs, a career .980 on base-plus-slugging percentage and career WAR of 117.5. He should be a shoo-in first-ballot member of this exclusive club. But his career was tainted by his admitted use of performance-enhancing drugs to the point where it is difficult to mark an "X" next to his name.
To be clear, I'm among the voters who believe that PED use before 2004 was more rampant than what was initially believed. In recent years, I have voted for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens because the industry largely looked the other way before adding teeth to the drug policy in 2004.
Anyone who has been caught cheating since 2004 should be placed under greater scrutiny, and A-Rod tops this list.
His name was one that was leaked in 2003 when the league was contemplating strengthening its drug policy, and he admitted to using banned substances between 2001 and 2003, reportedly synthetic testosterone and the anabolic steroid Primobolan. Again, this was when use was mostly unchecked.
