Don Mattingly, on steroids and the Hall: ‘Glad I don’t have a vote’

Sunday’s baseball Hall of Fame induction without any recent players generated a pre-game conversation with Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly about where it goes on from here for players stained by the steroid era.

“When you look at it, you want to know what you’re voting on -- did he do it on his own ability?” Mattingly said. “It makes it tough. You really don’t know. Even today, you watch guys play and one year to the next they’re different players, so you say, ‘What’s going on?’ You don’t know if things you saw over a five-year period were real.”

Yet, some accomplishments, like those of all-time home run king Barry Bonds and Dodgers hitting coach Mark McGwire, came before they were either linked to or acknowledged drug use.

How should those pure achievements be considered?

“A lot of it’s long term,” Mattingly said. “If guys were putting up better numbers at 38 than when they were 30 … the length of greatness is really shorter when you don’t have that help. And that’s what you don’t know. Those are issues. … I’m glad I don’t have a vote.”