As the team?s television color analyst, Jim Palmer can irate the most loyal Orioles fans. But Palmer?s comments regarding Major League Baseball investigator George Mitchell?s report united some of the same fans that often scoff at his on-air statements.
In Saturday?s Examiner, Palmer said: “I?m not a holier than thou guy, but I never did anything. Never took a greenie ? I took anti-inflammatory medicine ? but there were no anabolic steroids. I guess I come from the Cal Ripken Sr. school of thought, which is: there are no such things as shortcuts.”
To fans who can remember that school of thought ? “The Oriole Way,” as it is known ? Palmer?s comments were appropriate.
“He hit the nail right on top of the head,” Ferndale resident Jim Fauceglao said. “I don?t agree with a lot of the things he says, but this one I did.”
Fauceglao, 67, is disappointed 19 current or former Orioles are listed in the Mitchell Report. With the team?s struggles on the field during 10 consecutive losing seasons, Fauceglao wonders if the drugs should qualify as “performance-enhancing.”
“What they ought to do is ask for their money back,” Fauceglao said. “Maybe they got placebos instead of the real stuff.”
But the Orioles, as well as every other team, had at least one player who was linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs, including several of the game?s biggest names ? Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro and Barry Bonds.
With the inclusion of such esteemed names comes the question: Can performance-enhancing drug offenders find a place in the Hall of Fame? So far, Mark McGwire and his 583 home runs came up 281 votes short in his first year on the ballot this past January based solely on the suspicion of steroid use.
Rosedale resident Gerald Lowery, 72, thinks the inclusion of any player on the Mitchell Report should open up the hallowed Cooperstown doors to anyone ? particularly admitted gambler Pete Rose, who was banned from baseball in 1989.
“If these people, like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds are elected into the Hall of Fame, then I think Pete Rose ought to be elected into the Hall of Fame,” Lowery said. “I don?t think he did anything worse than they did.”
