Times-Herald: Buscema: First Hall of Fame ballot no easy decision

Far from the Madden crowd? And here I thought all the new voters might bring change. Hardy har-har.

Raines’ name was removed from my ballot at the last possible moment.

When he was in his first full season with the Expos, Raines admitted cocaine use, sought help and is thought to have been drug-free ever since making a mistake when he was a “young, young, young 20,” as he said in one interview. The rest of his career and status as a great teammate and leader was enough to make me consider overlooking the offense because cocaine is an addiction more than a performance enhancer, but three things finally tore at my gut enough to take him off my ballot for now:

1. He admitted sliding headfirst the year he used because he kept coke in his uniform pocket and didn’t want it to fall out — which is an act as disrespectful of the game as you can imagine.

2. As a player whose key Hall of Fame attribute was his speed, I want to examine a little further whether the use of a stimulant could have enhanced his performance whether he used it for that purpose or not.

3. He wasn’t a surefire Hall of Famer without that issue by any means; in fact, I had only seriously considered him after several compelling columns turned my head.