Cubs great and Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg said today that his fellow former Cubbie Sammy Sosa should not be barred from induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame because of his recent positive test in steriods:

“It’s something that’s against the law and against society,” Sandberg said. “It was cheating in the sport.

“I think it has to be spoken very loud and clear on the stance, and baseball needs to stand as they have. I’m very, very satisfied with the testing program they have in place now. For a guy who’s tested positive today under what happens now, like Manny Ramirez, it almost takes an idiot to participate in that. For the society, for the up-and-coming players and youth out there, I don’t think those guys should be recognized at all.”

Until recently, I would have agreed. In fact, my relative apathy towards baseball this year is in part due to the fact that virtually every future Hall of Famer currently playing has either already been busted for taking steroids or is under a giant cloud of suspicion. But my vehemence that all of these scammer should be banned for life subsided substantially when reading the Op-Ed page of the New York Times last week.

In it, baseball historian Zev Chavets argues not only have players always cheated at baseball, but it has been just as despicable, and more importantly, has involved most of the biggest names in the sport’s history. Now, I have always been aware of the vague allegations that players have been taking “greenies” for decades, but I did not realize, nor I’m guessing did anyone else, what else has been going on since the invention of the game. His whole column is eye popping. Here’s an excerpt:

Since the dawn of baseball, players have used whatever substances they believed would help them perform better, heal faster or relax during a long and stressful season. As far back as 1889, the pitcher Pud Galvin ingested monkey testosterone. During Prohibition, Grover Cleveland Alexander, also a pitcher, calmed his nerves with federally banned alcohol, and no less an expert than Bill Veeck, who owned several major-league teams, said that Alexander was a better pitcher drunk than sober.

In 1961, during his home run race with Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle developed a sudden abscess that kept him on the bench. It came from an infected needle used by Max Jacobson, a quack who injected Mantle with a home-brew containing steroids and speed. In his autobiography, Hank Aaron admitted once taking an amphetamine tablet during a game. The Pirates’ John Milner testified at a drug dealer’s trial that his teammate, Willie Mays, kept “red juice,” a liquid form of speed, in his locker. (Mays denied it.) After he retired, Sandy Koufax admitted the he was often “half high” on the mound from the drugs he took for his ailing left arm.

Sammy Sosa has been suspected of being the worst kind of fraud even before his test results leaked earlier this month. His bat once exploded all over the infield exposing cork he had been using to “bust out of a slump,” and in one of the most cowardly acts in perjury history, he claimed he did not speak English at the Congressional hearings on steroids, when he had been a gregarious favorite of reporters for close to a decade.

But if the sport’s philosphy has been “Anything Goes” for a century as opposed to just the last decade, then when it comes to the Hall, the standard should be should be the same: “Anyone Goes In.”