>> this is al jazeera america live from new york. time' tony harris. former defense secretary robert gates wrote in his book sharply criticizes vice president joe biden's i thin instincts. investigation of two helicopter crashes. the first happened in norfolk, virginia, and the other happened in england. it's not clear yet what caused

the accident. the trial of egypt's former president mohammed morsi was delayed. the court blamed bad weather. clashes erupted between protesters and security forces in cairo. more than a dozen people were arrested. and thousands of africa migrants protested outside of the israeli parliament building today. many say they have been jailed and their asylum applications have been overlooked. the prim israeli prime ministers described them as infiltrators. inside story is next on al jazeera america. >> she smashed records, they thrilled fans and wrote new chapters in the history of the game, and many were probably cheating. we asked writers and you what to do about the

performance-enhancing drugs in baseball on the day that the new hall of famers are announce. that's "inside story." >> hello, i'm ray suarez. if you're a baseball fan you may remember the 1990s with sheer joy, great players beginning or ending careers. or you may have memories that are ambivalent. mark mcgwire and sammy sosa combining for 136 round trippers in one season. baseball trying to wrap its head around a new normal only very late in the game. today the decisions of the voting members of the baseball writers association of america were announced who among

eligible players would be honored with the plaque on the walls of the baseball hall of fame in cooperstown, new york. they are greg maddoux, the winner the cubs and braves fame, and the great chicago white sox greg thomas with 521 career home runs. what to do with the players whose careers are in the shadow of the tainted era? the writers have decided not to decide. barring the gates of cooperstown glory to the most heavily rumored names and allowing players who had reputations for playing clean to emerge from their arcane balloting. >> reporter: players are voted in by members of the baseball writers association of america, a player must get 75% of the vote to be inducted. you need at least 5% to stay on the ballot the following year, and can only be on the ballot 15

years. last year was the first that players from the so-called steroid era were on the ballot, and no one was voted in. again this year two baseball legends, home run leader barry bonds and pitching ace roger clemens got support. more votes than last year but not enough. for the baseball writers america's pastime hit a low point in what is known as steroids era beginning in the late 80's. many players were suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs shattering longstanding records. steroid use was banned by major league baseball in 1991, but testing didn't begin until 2003, so remarkable players using p.e.d.s were never caught. rumors of drug use pit player against player.

>> during the period discussed in my report the use of steroids in major league baseball was widespread. >> reporter: the culmination of two-year investigation led by a former u.s. senator from maine the 400-page report pulled back the veil and named over 80 players who used steroids or other p.e.d.s including superstars barry bonds, roger clemens, gary sheffield and jason giambi. they found that the baseball association was largely incorporative despite concluding that least one player from each of the teams used illegal substances. >> the minority o players who ue substances were wrong, they distorted the fairness of competition by trying to gain an unfair advantage over the majority of players who followed the law and the rules.

>> reporter: congress held hearings. player after player either didn't answer pointed questions or pinned the blame on others. best known doping allegation center on san francisco giants outfielder home run king barry bonds was convicted of obstruction of justice in 2011 surrounding the bay area laboratory cooperative or balco. he didn't serve prison time. in 2012 roger clemens was found not guilty of lying to congress when he testified he never took steroids. although both bonds and clemens were named in the mitchell report neither was proven to have taken steroids. coming off the strike year of 1994 baseball took a big public relations hit but was revived in 1998 as the nation watched in amazement as a home run chase between power hitters mark mcgwire and sammy sosa stretched through the summer. maguire since admitted he used

steroids that year. with sosa suspicion of steroid use had never been proven. both players had slugging records worthy of hall of fame, they're on the balance a lot but never have been voted in. baseball is not the only sport fighting the use of steroids. american sprinter marion jones went to jail for lying to federal prosecutors about her steroid use. and after years of denial lance armstrong finally admitted he used drugs and blood dope to go win the cycling prize tour de france a record number of times. >> how do sports restore their image and regain the trust of fans? are athletes who didn't take drugs smeared by association?

the hall of fame, do they have to decide? do they have to have a policy? or through the voting formula and the gut check over time do we get something like a verdict? for now the suspected cheaters have to wait. joining us to talk about the hall of fame announcement from denver jonah cary, writer, and author of "up up and away." and editor of sp nation and cliff corkland, a writer for "sports illustrated" where he's coauthor of "the strike zone blog." let me start with you, the fact that bonds and clemens have been passed over yet again is that a kind of verdict even without any official policies on what to do with suspect athletes? >> it is. obviously the writers who vote, and i'm not among them. the writers who vote, a certain

percentage of them, two-thirds, decided despite clea clearly deserving to be on the hall of fame because of their on field accomplishments will not be awarded because of their steroid use. i don't think that's just. it should be up to baseball. if baseball wants to declare these players uneligible for the hall of fame i like they did with pete rose, they should not be on the ballot and clearly could not be voted for. but the voters should only consider what they did on the field. if they're on the ballot they should be voted in. >> is this a form of the writers creating their own probation and they'll eventually put barry bonds and others into the hall of fame? >> well, it certainly is probation, how long it's going to last is a good question. i would guess they're going to get in.

i find with baseball and the hall of fame "never" is a big thing to say. this guy, gosh, he's not getting enough votes, p.e.d.s or not, the momentum will pick up and things change, and cliff mentioned that he's not a voter, neither am i, but we're both members of the baseball association of america. i just got in a month ago. so in 2023 i'll be able to vote. and if barry bonds is still on the ballot i'm going to vote for him. people from a younger generation who grew up watching these guys plays, they may have a different thought of p.e.d.s and not willing to crack the hammer on them. >> will it roll out now? >> you have a lot of voters now who are active as writers in the 7070's, 80's, and 90's, and saw

these guys played. i think many of them feel betrayed, they feel that what they watched, reported and celebrated was not authentic. whether they say explicitly or not they want someone to be punished for that lack of authenticity. really, all they can do is withhold their hall of fame support for these few incredibly talented brilliant players who have obvious hall of fame numbers. what if drugs never had been invented, and it's an emotional reaction. it's not a local reaction for what happened back in the 1990's. >> i think what happens among all the sports, baseball is obsessed with its numbers. if you listen to two fans talking about who was better trying to compare players across eras they fall back on numbers almost immediately. if something undermines the

validity of the numbers, haven't you undermined the whole game of being a fan? >> well, look, there have always been things that undermined the validity or threw them into question whether it was smaller ballparks, livelier baseballs, these things have always been around. you're right in that much of the outcry about what happened in the 90s about barry bonds has to do solely with the numbers that the records that were broken. mark maguire breaking the records and then barry bonds breaking hank aarons record. i think those two in particular define an era for a lot of people. >> we're going to take a short break, and when we come back we'll talk about baseball today and what the sport does going forward to deal with steroid era in baseball. this is inside story.

the pacific eververyday? >> join america tonight's michael okwu for an exclusive four part series, as we return to fukushima only on al jazeera america sense for some people. >> you may want all these gadgets and want to take them home. it will be a while for a lot of them to be available to us. that great to have you on the show, good to see you, enjoy yourself out there in vegas. >> time now to see what's trending on aljazeera america's website. >> a new report out today by the american cancer society points to a 20% drop in can senior death rates, over a million lives saved in the last decades

due in large part to a smoking decrease. not much attention is paid to lung cancer, but it accounts for more than one in every four cancer deaths. a big headline is progress among middle aged black men. from noon 91 to 2010 cancer death rates have declined 50% among black men in that age range. death rates are still higher among black men than white men >> welcome back to "inside story." i'm ray suarez. the baseball hall of fame in cooperstown will induct three

players in summer. baseball writers have just voted in greg maddux, tom glavin and frank thomas, jonah, has baseball finally grasped, it was later than other sports to create standards, to impose a testing regimen. going forward will it be clear enough about the players who are playing now whether they are playing clean. >> i would say that baseball is leaps and bounds over the three team sports. you could say olympics is ahead, but the nba and nfl and nhl, one player is suspended and comes back having gained 16 pounds of muscle. wow.

that's on suspension. it perceived as an epidemic, but i think baseball is very much not only caught up but surpassed others sports and are making a real effort to get rid of this in the game. >> cliff, was baseball the author of some of its own miseries when it took its time when others were cracking down on chemicals and substances, baseball created this sort of, i don't know, mushy limbo period of 12 years between the time of when it says don't take them and when it was checking. >> one of the major factors is the 1994 player strike. baseball hit a big blow there. it canceled the world series for the first time since 1904.

yeah, baseball looked the other way because they needed to bring fans back and the commercials with greg maddux and tom glavine, baseball had a reason to look the other way, and they looked the other way too long and let the monster out. they let it go too long. i don't think you'll ever completely get rid of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball or any other sport. there will always be incentive on the fringe of the game to use, but certainly baseball looked the other way for too young. >> not only baseball was looking the other way, but weren't the sports writers looking the other way? didn't it come down to the beat writers not wanting to cross certain thresholds when writing about certain players?

>> the union fought tooth and nail against any testing but writers could have done more. there were writers who knew what was going on but they couldn't write anything without evidence. the truth is baseball writers as a group, they're not investigative reporters. really, if you're going to blame anyone on the journalistic side i would go a level higher to the editors, and the producers, the tv networks. they could have assigned stories to the investigative reporters they do have and actually dug deep and tried to find some of these things out. nobody really did that for a long time. so yeah, look, there is plenty of blame to go around, and the players deserve their share and so did a lot of other people. >> jonah, isn't there a question mark over a lot of this because many of the people who were spoken of routinely as being tainted have never actually failed a drug test or been caught doping.

>> no doubt about it. if you wanted to be a writer, you couldn't go around smearing somebody. you needed evidence. but now it's the other way, mike piaza is being accused because he has acne on his back. these are not at all reasonable standards to exclude someone from baseball's highest numbers. if the numbers are there and there is guilt, butt the put th. i think we've swung the other way. i think it's the writers who feel they feel burned. if they didn't do it the first time, they're sure as heck going to do it the next time. >> if the numbers are there, let them in, do you agree with that? >> i could. it's up to baseball to declare these players uneligible. if they're on the ballot the writers should deal directly on what they did on the field.

you can go back throughout the history of baseball who used amphetamine and disreputable involved with game throwing, racism, horrible off-the-field attributes. yes, the drugs contributed to on the field performance but you can't prove that someone didn't use for a whole 20-year baseball career. if someone is on the ballot you have to vote on what they did on the field and let baseball sort them out. >> by common consent this was one of the most talented fields of candidates ever in the hall of fame selection. yet one voter submitted a blank ballot. one voter only voted for morris, in a weird way are the sports writers, some of them cranky, some of them willing to look the other way, some of them not, proxies for the fans themselves?

>> well, they are if their he idiosyncratic, and they have their own pet peeves and their pet projects. and you mentioned those two ballots. craig vigio missed the ballot by two votes. he's a great candidate historically speaking. those two odd ballots kept him out. i will say this, though, i don't think the fans care as much about the drug issue as the writers do. you can say that's good or bad, i don't know, but i don't think that the writers are proxies. i think the writers are proxies for themselves, maybe for a certain generation of baseball fans born before 1970 or something or 1960, but do they mirror the average baseball fan? no, i don't think so. >> one interesting development rafael palmero, a man who hit just about the same number of home runs as frank thomas who was voted in the hall of fame today, is falling off the ballot is because he did not clear the

5% threshold. he won't ahere on the ballot next year. is he really so far the most scalp taken by steroid era? jonah? >> clearly. i mean, you could argue--the numbers are interesting. we're getting into home runs, hits, and so forth, the three of us on this panel we all deal with advance stats and by advance stats palmero is closer than you think. but there is no question that he would get more support if he wasn't linked with p.d.s. yes, there is no doubt about it. he has been the first casualty, and bonds and clemens are just ongoing stories to see how they're going to go and how the vote might or might not pick up over the future. >> cliff, rob, can you think of any other people who might be in jeopardy in going the palme ro route. to have a guy north of 500 home runs not be considered for the hall very early in his eligibility window is a striking

thing. >> yes, well -- >> sorry, go ahead. >> mark mcgwire got 11% this year, which i believe is a six-point drop from last year. his candidacy is weak. the problem is we have a very crowded ballot. next year we'll have randy johnson, john smoltz gary sheffield has steroid connection. he's winding down his candidacy. he's the next guy in danger of falling off because of steroid use. >> when we come back we'll talk about drugs in other sports. this is inside story. stay with us.

and in those cases where formal education isn't feasible because of

>> welcome back to "inside story." i'm ray suarez. two squeaky clean 300 game winners and a big slugger is going to cooperstown. but a long list of stars will wait for the title hall of famer. the which is how long and whether we're coming to common wisdom across athletics on this edition of the program we're talking about drugs in sports. rob, i'm wondering whether now as a class of institutions, whether sport is getting its arms around this, and whether with distance we'll look at this with the bad 'ol days in 10 years, 20 years. >> you know, in 20 years, i wouldn't want to guess because there are so many different things happening with drugs, implants, computer chips, who knows what will happen. but this year, sure, we'll look back on this time as an unique time, it was when people did whatever they want, it was the

wild west. players use drugs in every sport but i don't think as often because the penalties are so severe now. >> has it brought the sports, jonah, athletics, cycling, the nfl, into a kind of disrepute that leads fans if they can really trust what they're watching. >> i think it depends on the fans. in the nfl, james harrison was suspended, a big muscular guy who came back, and if you way 220 in the mlb, that's not necessarily accepted. in the nba nobody talks if the guys are doping, the same in the nhl. i think it's what sport we're talking about and the group of fans and the younger generation of fans don't care as much as the older ones do.

>> have the sports moved in a way to protect their brands? do they feel this is essential to handle because of the fans watching over their shoulders? >> absolutely. that's mainly bud selig, an outgoing commissioner has been trying to protect his legacy and the legacy of the sport trying to eradicate steroids. i don't think they'll ever get rid of them. with advances of medical technology, they'll never get rid of them. but even if it's just putting on a show of trying to eradicate them, baseball has come a long way of doing that, and they're doing a very good job even if some of their methods were in the bio jenist case was a little under handed. >> in the majors and the minors, they face long suspensions. it's funny that people think

they can still cheat the cup test. >> i think there is always going to be someone who thinks they can. the drugs are always going to be ahead of the test and there will always be players on the fringes, whether it's a triple-a who just can't get that major job, or a player who was tested last year and whose only shot back in is a little something tricky on the medical end. there will be always those players trying to do it because they don't have a whole lot to lose and the rewards as we've seen with the contracts are great. >> cliff, rob, jonah, gentlemen, thank you all. thank you for being with us on the announcement day. that brings us to the end of this edition of "inside story." thanks for being with us. in washington, i'm ray suarez.