The extent to which there are cheaters in the National Baseball Hall of Fame depends on how much weight you put into allegations/rumors, and whether or not you believe gaining from a substance or drug that wasn't outright banned at the time is considered cheating. So with that, consider the following:
• Gaylord Perry (inducted 1991) wrote an entire memoir on throwing a spitball throughout a career that peaked a half-century after that pitch was outlawed. If you've ever seen the comedy
Major League, think of the Harris character. That's more or less Perry. Cheating? I say yes, and somehow lovably so.
• Don Sutton (inducted 1998) was often suspected for scuffing baseballs, and was ejected from a few games for doing so. And suspect, schmuspect... Whitey Ford (ind. 1974) fully admitted to doing this throughout his career. Cheating? Sure, why not?
• Long before kambo shamen and frog poison, Babe Ruth (ind. 1939) reportedly tried injecting himself with an extract from a sheep's testicles in the hopes that it would improve his game. Cheating? Supposedly, it didn't work and actually made him sick, but that he tried it as a way to get an edge at least puts this as "attempted cheating," right? Again, hard to say. I'd say no overall. There was no rule against it because why the hell would someone think up a rule against that???
• I didn't know of this until writing this post and looking up details for the previous entry, but Pud Galvin (ind. 1965) tried a technique similar to – and perhaps inspiration for – Babe Ruth's experiment:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...her-of-juicing. Cheating? Again, no overall. To me, it's just experimenting with something so out there that no one bothered to create a rule governing it. This would be like a modern-day ballplayer wondering what happens if he butt-chugs concentrated yerba mate to see if it produces a boost.
• Burleigh Grimes (ind. 1964) pitched for 14 years after the spitball was outlawed, but was allowed to still use the pitch due to some grandfather clause. Was he cheating? I say no, because of the grandfather clause. But the bottom line is that he used a technique that gives a player an unfair advantage, and he did so for the entirety of his career. I'm sure many NVGers will look askance at it.
• Baseball was lousy with amphetamines like "greenies," the nickname for dexedrine pills, throughout the 1960s through 1970s and likely into the 1990s and early 2000s. The rumor – and it's only a rumor – is that Ted Williams (ind. 1966) introduced amphetamines to the game after using it during his wartime service. Multiple player testified to getting greenies from Willie Stargell (ind. 1988), while John Milner claimed he obtained a liquid form nicknamed "red juice" from Willie Mays (ind. 1979). Jim Bouton wrote openly about the rampant use of greenies in his book
Ball Four, but I don't remember if he named specific names. Still, the fact remains that a good number of players likely used some form of amphetamine for decades, and it stands to reason several of them are in NBHOF. Cheating? It's iffy because we don't really know how many actually used them, they weren't technically forbidden from baseball, and the jury is still out as to how much they helped.
• Tim Raines (ind. 2017) spoke and later wrote quite candidly about his cocaine use in the 1980s. The use of the powder reached a point where baseball suspended 11 players, although Raines and star Paul Molitor (ind. 1984) were not among that group. Cheaters? I don't know enough about cocaine to know if it hurts more than it helps overall to be on that stuff, but one can envision some circumstances where it could technically serve as a PED.
• In the wake of the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal, Blackjack McDowell claimed Tony LaRussa (ind. 2014) used a similar operation while managing the White Sox in the 1980s. Carlton Fisk (ind. 2000) and Harold Baines (ind. 2018) were among the South Side stars of that era. Cheating? If true, sure, but that's a big if. As for the legacies of Fisk and Baines, even if the allegation is true, it's impossible to know how often it was used, and it's fair to say their inductions did not hinge on a few extra hits during that span of their career.
• Hank Greenberg (ind. 1956) stated outright that his Tigers used an elaborate sign-stealing scheme in 1940, the year his team won the pennant and he won the MVP award. Per Greenberg's autobiography, the Tigers' operation involved putting people with rifle scopes in the upper deck, then relaying the info to the dugout. Greenberg even said he knew where the confederates were sitting and didn't need the signal from the dugout because he could see the signal from the batter's box. It's worth pointing out that stealing signs is not in itself illegal. And stealing signs by use of some sort of mechanical or electronic device did not become illegal until years later. Cheating? Pretty gray an area, but I lean toward no due to the rules (or lack thereof) banning such actions.
• George Brett (ind. 1999) famously and hilariously got ejected from a game for having the pine tar extend too far down the barrel of the bat. The rules call for 18 inches, his extended a good six inches beyond that. Cheating? I'd say no. It was one game out of 2,707 Brett played, and one home run out of 317 he hit. Plus, the rule in question had nothing to do with a player gaining any advantage. I include it because it's still one of my favorite moments as a baseball fan, and because I know there are some people who have an overall "if they break a rule, it's cheating" philosophy.
