Andy Pettitte will not, and should not, become a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Pettitte has enjoyed an outstanding career. He has won championships. More importantly, he's won the respect of teammates, fans and opponents alike, and made several boatloads of cash doing it. To our best knowledge, he was never photographed frequenting various strip clubs with armloads of prostitutes, pockets filled with drugs or carrying a loaded handgun to establish his “street cred.”
These are all notable qualities, indeed. However, they are not enough to overcome the one single, critical concept in deciding who is invited to Cooperstown.
Pettitte is not someone who will be considered a true “legend” of the game. Great performances—he has them in bunches. Great accomplishments—enough to fill a locker. Great moments as part of a team—there can be no doubt.
But Pettitte falls short of being one of the greatest players, especially pitchers, to ever take the field. And in the end, that word, “greatness,” must be what separates those in the Hall and those who need a purchased ticket for entrance.
This is not an insult, nor is it bred from any dislike of Pettitte based on teams he pitched or didn’t pitch for.
It simply comes down to a discussion of "greatness," the most overused and abused word in sports. A word that must be paramount in deciding such exclusive post-career membership.
There is very little, if any, real substance that an intelligent and informed baseball fan can say to knock Pettitte’s career on the field.
Fans of the Houston Astros may still feel jilted after his three seasons there, followed by his return to the New York Yankees. Those who come to the table with more than a sliver of baseball knowledge would only applaud Pettitte and realize he remains one of the key reasons the franchise came within a baseball stitch of winning the World Series in 2005.
He earned every single nickel of his Astros contract, and very likely would have stayed if the Houston front office had not chosen to play tough and refuse anything more than a one-year deal. They were outfoxed, outgunned and outsmarted by the Yankees.
Those who swear allegiance to any team other than the Yankees will drag up everything imaginable to discredit Pettitte, and it’s all directly attributable to those duds with the pinstripes, which in the parlance of fans is exactly how it should be.
The only real dark mark on Pettitte’s career is his involvement with more than a few shady steroid drug runners back home in Texas.
While there is not one shred of credible evidence he ever used steroids, Pettitte saw the Congressional hammer falling and admitted to the use of HGH, or human growth hormone. Pettitte’s father started down the HGH trail in a wrong-headed search for something to help with his heart problem. Ironically, HGH can only make such a condition worse.
Pettitte knowingly broke the rule about using performance-enhancing substances. He did indeed admit his "mistake," but only after the evidence, both true and fabricated, was piling up.
It was threatening not only his image, but his baseball future. Despite coming clean, he cheated to win. Some may counter that it was only a “little cheat,” which is just like using the phrase “a little pregnant.”
If from this moment forward we are to deny entry into the Hall of Fame based on the use and abuse of PEDs, then Pettitte’s name should not even be on the ballot. This despite the standard lame excuses such as “everybody does it,” “it was only HGH and not steroids,” “PED’s don’t really do much for pitchers,” or “the dog ate my homework that included the actual testimony from those he and his father did business with for illegal drugs in Texas.”
Which brings us then to his actual performance. Those scintillating numbers that baseball faithful live by and can quote more accurately than the birth dates of their children, anniversary dates for key moments with significant others and that last cholesterol reading that would make any sane person swear off hot dogs and cheeseburgers for life.
Pettitte has never had a losing season as a professional, including in the minor leagues. He is the only pitcher since 1930 to record at least 12 wins in each of his first nine seasons. His 19 postseason victories are the most ever recorded by one pitcher. His 148 wins since 2000 dwarfs the numbers put up by almost all of his contemporaries.
All exceptional, notable and historic numbers.
Am I making a solid case for legendary status?
It’s relatively easy to never have a losing season when 13 of those 16 big league seasons were in the Bronx. This also accounts for the opportunity to pitch in so many playoff games and carry home so many rings. When you play with the roster of talent that has graced Pettitte’s career both in NY and Houston, those with exceptional talent simply should not miss out on those opportunities.
Of his 16 seasons, however, only two show 20 wins or more and he never recorded a single season with 200 strikeouts or better. During his three-season stint in Houston, Pettitte was a very good (but not great) 37-26.
His final victory total (240) and strikeout number (2,251) are not even close to the respective markers of 300 and 3,000 that are required for true pitching greatness.
Those numbers prove that while Pettitte is a good pitcher, his perceived greatness drops into the category of having played on the right franchise (Yankees), at the right time (1995-2000, every season in the playoffs, six World Series trips and four victories; 2007-2010, three playoff visits and another World Series title) and enjoying one of the single greatest home field advantages in any sport (Yankee Stadium).
And those 19 postseason victories are also accompanied by 10 defeats. As a way of comparison, Curt Schilling’s postseason numbers are much more impressive than Pettitte’s.
Pettitte is a very good pitcher who leaves behind a number of outstanding performances, all of which are or should be noted as such in the Hall of Fame when attention turns to the Yankees as a team. He was part of several championship teams, but was never the focal point of why those teams won so many games in both the regular and postseason.
Should one even be able to find a logical counter for any or all of the numerical reasons, Pettitte must be excluded for shaming himself, his family, the game of baseball, the Yankees franchise and their fans by using PEDs. His admittance to taking HGH was not caused by a sudden surge of morality, rather the jolt of federal law-breaking.
Pettitte will still live on in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown as one cog in a legendary machine and part of highlight reels celebrating the game, achievements of note and historic moments.
But not as an individual.
While he is an outstanding player, Pettitte is not one of the true “greats” of the game.
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