Why Mcgwire is an amazing player: I saw an at bat against Randy Johnson once, back when Mac was with Oakland still and Johnson was with Seattle(around '95-'97). In the game, the Unit has struckout Mac twice, and during the third plate appearance, Johnson was at it again, pitching even faster than before. First pitch came in at 100 MPH I believe, and then the second pitch(101 MPH) came in and Mac caught up. That HR was amazing because I never saw it. The cameraman tried to pan back and up to get the ball into view, but it traveled so fast and far to it's location that you never glimpsed it...this was back at the Kingdome back in the day. That ball might still have been traveling if the damn upper deck seats didn't get in the way. My reaction was one of shock and amazement...that blast just looked heroic...although Johnson was heroic as well in that game striking out a huge amount of people and looking amazing...it was a classic in my mind, even though both teams weren't going anywhere.

I'm glad I can remember things like this when it comes down to people tearing apart a player based on every decision they have made and statistic they have available. I don't neccessarily care about whether he gets into the HOF or not, but I figure he eventually should. So should Rose, Bonds, Giambi, anyone who has the stats because they accomplished things that most of their peers didn't. Sadly, they did it while doing things that were against the rules, probably immoral, and shouldn't be made examples for kids to follow. But, if that was the problem, then they should probably just dump about 25-50% of the people in HOF's anyway; there isn't alot of innocent people out there in the first place.

If I had to rate HOF players, I would do it by the amount of WOWs they get from me in their career...top 2% get to stay. Numbers are great, but moments and feats are what really make sports alive to me.