Originally Posted by
Blue in the Face
Obviously mlb had no testing and did little (or nothing) to enforce the rule until pretty recently. Given the lack of enforcement, I imagine players didn't spend a lot of time thinking about the policy, but to me at least, it strains credulity to think that these guys didn't know that injecting themselves with something they couldn't legally acquire was against league rules. I also think your analogy misses the mark quite a bit, since the merits of someone to serve as President aren't particularly enhanced by having ever broken the speed limit or gotten high (at least in most people's eyes). The merits of someone's candidacy for the Hall of Fame are pretty significantly impacted by having used PED's, although at least with some of the guys we're talking about, I think absent any PED's they'd have had HOF careers.
At any rate, I think I'd vote purely based on a player's performance, and give no regard to any known or suspected PED use. But I don't think we should gloss over the fact that it was against the rules, they almost surely knew it was against the rules, and it has, or can have, an impact on performance that makes it a much more significant offense than skirting the speed limit.