It Won’t Enhance His Hall Chances

On Sunday, a good day for baseball, Tom Lasorda celebrated the sport, visiting Cooperstown to join in welcoming Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg into the Hall of Fame.

On Monday, a bad day for baseball, Lasorda bemoaned the stain upon the sport. Rafael Palmeiro, a player whose credentials suggest he could someday join Lasorda in the Hall of Fame, had tested positive for steroids.

“It’s a sad situation,” Lasorda said. “Here’s a guy who flatly denied he was taking any steroids. He told Congress that. We find out now he’s been caught.

“I don’t think too much of the guy now. He lied to Congress. He lied to the people. He has to suffer the consequences.”

In March, Palmeiro told Congress, “I have never used steroids. Period.”

On Monday, as his suspension was announced, he issued a statement in which he said, “I have never intentionally used steroids. Never.”

The immediate consequence is a 10-day suspension. The lasting consequence may start five years after his retirement, when he becomes eligible for election to the Hall of Fame. Palmeiro last month joined Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Eddie Murray as the only players with 500 home runs and 3,000 hits.

Lasorda, who votes in the veterans’ committee balloting for the Hall of Fame, stopped just short of saying that the suspension would dissuade him from voting for Palmeiro. (The veterans’ committee would vote on Palmeiro only if the Baseball Writers Assn. of America did not elect him.)

“I’m not going to say it for right now, but you know how I feel about guys taking steroids,” Lasorda said. “They cheated.”

Jose Canseco wrote in his book “Juiced” -- and said again Monday in an ESPN radio interview -- that Palmeiro had used steroids when they were teammates with the Texas Rangers.

Palmeiro has denied that allegation, but Lasorda suggested that Monday’s suspension could lead Hall of Fame voters to cast a skeptical eye at the statistics Palmeiro compiled before baseball’s new drug-testing policy took effect this season.

“Do you know how long he’s been taking it?” Lasorda said. “Those are the things that are going to become very important.”

Said Angel General Manager Bill Stoneman: “We look back at people like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, who set some of the old -- and what were deemed to be unassailable -- records. You’d like the tradition of your game to continue, where somebody playing in today’s era can be measured against somebody who played back then. Illegal performance-enhancing substances change that.”

Stoneman noted that Ruth was a legendary carouser.

“His performance on the field, I don’t think, was enhanced by what he did,” Stoneman said. “How much better could he have been?”

Stoneman said today’s players could improve with weight-training and nutrition programs and without steroids.

“Maybe I’m being unrealistically pure, but I don’t think there’s any room for it,” he said. “It’s disappointing, no matter who it is, whether it’s a veteran like Palmeiro, who’s had a good career, or a young player who thinks that might help him.”

In his statement, Palmeiro suggested that he had taken an over-the-counter nutritional supplement that should not have contained steroids but possibly had come into contact with them in the manufacturing process.

“It is important for all players to understand the risk of contamination and to be very careful about what they put in their body,” Palmeiro said.

Agent Scott Boras long has called upon the commissioner’s office and players’ union to jointly develop a program in which certain supplements would be tested and labeled free of steroids and safe for use.

In the meantime, although trainers and doctors provide information on products, the responsibility rests with players, at the risk of a positive test.

“It all has to start with education,” Angel Manager Mike Scioscia said. “Stuff is packaged under a lot of names. You have to be cognizant of what you put into your body.

“The burden is definitely being put on a player.”

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By the numbers

Where Rafael Palmeiro ranks in career home runs and hits (* active):

*--* HOME RUNS 1 HANK AARON 755 2 BABE RUTH 714 3 *BARRY BONDS 703 4 WILLIE MAYS 660 5 *SAMMY SOSA 587 6 FRANK ROBINSON 586 7 MARK McGWIRE 583 8 HARMON KILLEBREW 573 9 *RAFAEL PALMEIRO 569 10 REGGIE JACKSON 563

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*--* HITS 1 PETE ROSE 4,256 2 TY COBB 4,191 3 HANK AARON 3,771 4 STAN MUSIAL 3,630 5 TRIS SPEAKER 3,514 6 CARL YASTRZEMSKI 3,419 7 HONUS WAGNER 3,415 8 PAUL MOLITOR 3,319 9 EDDIE COLLINS 3,315 23 *RAFAEL PALMEIRO 3,018

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Suspensions

Players suspended for 10 days in 2005 for violating Major League Baseball’s drug program:

*--* April 3 ALEX SANCHEZ Outfielder, Tampa Bay April 11 JORGE PIEDRA Outfielder, Colorado April 20 AGUSTIN MONTERO Pitcher, Texas April 26 JAMAL STRONG Outfielder, Seattle May 2 JUAN RINCON Pitcher, Minnesota July 8 RAFAEL BETANCOURT Pitcher, Cleveland Aug. 1 RAFAEL PALMEIRO First baseman, Baltimore

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