“Do you think I played my career because I’m worried about the (censored) Hall of Fame? I don’t need the Hall of Fame to justify that I put my butt on the line and I worked my tail off.” – Roger Clemens

Regarding this increasingly hard-to-get-into baseball shrine of ours:

A monument to the greatest ballplayers who ever lived, it is about to bar its doors and deny admittance to baseball’s all-time leader in hits (Pete Rose) and home runs (Barry Bonds), as well as to the third-best batting average in history (Joe Jackson’s .356) and quite possibly to the gargantuan feats of Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire.

Let me give you a prime example of the absurdity of it all:

Harold Baines received a mere 28 votes in the recently tabulated Hall of Fame election. The former White Sox outfielder fell 380 shy of the 408 required for induction. Fourteen other players from this year’s ballot alone received more votes than Baines did.

OK, are you ready?

Harold Baines has more hits than Brooks Robinson, Charlie Gehringer, George Sisler, Luke Appling, Lou Gehrig … (keep going) … Billy Williams, Luis Aparicio, Nellie Fox, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Reggie Jackson, Ernie Banks … (don’t stop now) … Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Richie Ashburn, Ozzie Smith, Lloyd Waner, Pie Traynor, Mickey Mantle … (tired yet?) … Ryne Sandberg, Carlton Fisk, Orlando Cepeda, Eddie Mathews, Kirby Puckett, Mike Schmidt …

How could you begin to explain who is worthy and who is not?

How do you justify to people why Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter are in Cooperstown, with their humble stats, whereas Lee Smith is not and Clemens with his colossal 354 victories might never be?

How do you point out to the public – or, for that matter, to the voters – that Baines stands 40th on the all-time hits list? That he had seven fewer hits than Babe Ruth?

How do you argue with Ron Santo’s rabid supporters that, good as he was, he ranks tied for 140th place in hits, 80th in home runs, 82nd in RBIs and that his .277 lifetime average was not exactly the stuff of legends?

Roger Maris is not in the Hall of Fame. As you well know, Maris not only broke the Babe’s single-season home run record of 60, he did it on a diet that included beer and cigarettes, not human growth hormone.

More and more, you hear nostalgic baseball purists rue the fact that Maris never was deemed worthy of the Hall, the same way a just plain lights-out hitter like Jim Rice repeatedly has been denied entry … this week for the 14th consecutive year.

Well, permit me to remind these folks something about Mr. Maris.

He had 1,325 hits. That ranks him in a tie for 731st place all-time.

Players who already have more hits than Maris did in his entire career include these giants of the game: Jose Valentin, Tony Womack, Neifi Perez, Cliff Floyd, Juan Pierre, Rondell White, Royce Clayton, Ray Durham, Jason Kendall and Mark Grudzielanek.

Gossage is the 61st pitcher to gain induction. He won 124 games. Clemens very well be could barred from the Hall because of a performance-enhancing drug use that has not yet been proven. He has won 354 games.

Goose is an immortal but the Rocket is not? What kind of Hall of Fame is this going to be, anyhow? One that excludes the greats but includes the merely good?