Imrem: Hey, voters, jump aboard the PEDwagon
Oh, so other Hall of Fame voters want to climb down off their high horses and up onto baseball's PEDwagon.
Welcome aboard, everyone.
I have been riding up here for so long that they appointed me driver, conductor and chief ticket puncher.
For a long time, passengers have had to dodge the mud, tomatoes and profanities slung at them.
Now some of the slingers have joined us blasphemers.
I have voted for suspected or confirmed users of performance-enhancing drugs since they began appearing on the ballot.
This year my votes went to Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Vlad Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Tim Raines, Ivan Rodriguez, Curt Schilling, Lee Smith and Sammy Sosa.
Bagwell, Bonds, Clemens, Rodriguez and Sosa are linked in some way or other to banned substances, and this year Bagwell and Rodriguez were elected.
Perhaps more significant, Clemens went up in a year from 45.2 percent of the vote to 54 and Bonds from 44.3 percent to 53.8.
Projections are that Clemens and Bonds, for years considered unlikely to make the Hall of Fame, just might get there sometime during their final five years of eligibility.
Sammy Sosa, who played for both the Cubs and White Sox, shouldn't be as hopeful: He climbed from 7 percent to 8.6, above the 5 percent threshold to remain on the ballot but a long way from the 75 percent required for election.
Why do I vote for the likes of Sosa? Because I haven't erased from my mind what I saw him do on the field any more than baseball erased it from the record books.
While not expecting everyone to agree, voting for Sosa and the others is easy.
Now, though, Manny Ramirez has arrived to pose a complication.
Ramirez's career makes him worthy of Cooperstown, but he received only 24 percent of the vote in his first year on the ballot.
Go back and check whose boxes I checked and you'll notice that Ramirez didn't make my cut.
Why? Because Ramirez was suspended twice after testing positive for banned substances.
Others linked to PEDs — including Bonds, Clemens and Sosa — compiled most or all of their stats before baseball began testing in 2004.
I pledged in print a couple of years ago that I wouldn't vote for anyone who was suspended after a testing program was instituted.
That includes Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez and who knows how many other future candidates?
Full disclosure: I'm not so sure I'll be able to honor the pledge. The PED issue is a fluid proposition and I'm already wavering on Ramirez.
I'll have fewer qualms about changing my mind now that so many voters have gone from shunning probable users to embracing them.
A variety of reasons have been given for them relenting, one of the most amusing being that Bud Selig will be inducted this year.
You know, as if voters didn't anticipate that Selig, baseball's Commissioner of Steroids, would make it into the Hall of Fame some day.
They had to wait for it to happen? It wasn't enough that Selig not only remained in office but was paid $20 million annually? That didn't validate the steroids era for them?
That's OK.
As driver/captain/ticket puncher of the PEDwagon chugging toward Cooperstown, I welcome all who saw the light and came over to the dark side.
All aboaaaaard!