We don’t hold Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA in 1968 against him because he created it during a year in which the National League ERA was 2.99; last year, Roy Oswalt’s NL-leading ERA was 2.98 and the league ERA was 4.49.

The ERAs of the 1960s were just as aberrant as the home run totals of the late 1990s. As far as that goes, the home run and RBI totals of the 1930s. In 1930, to pick one absurdly prolific year, the National League hit .303 and had a .448 slugging percentage. In 1998, the year of baseball’s supposed shame and McGwire’s 70 home runs, the National League slugged .410. Even with steroids, the modern players still couldn’t out-hit those who played nearly 70 years earlier.

The point is that you can only judge players by what they did in the era in which they played. McGwire may have taken steroids, and he certainly looked ridiculous in front of a Congressional subcommittee, but that was the how the game was played. Baseball had no rules against drugs — other than the recreational variety — and McGwire was hardly the only one getting help from his pharmacist. Remember, the pitchers were juicing up, too.

And in that era, McGwire was the best first baseman in the game. He was that when he was a relatively skinny kid in Oakland and remained so when he was a bloated and pock-marked monster in St. Louis.

When I vote, I vote for the best at his position in his time. It’s why I continue to vote for Jim Rice, whose stats look puny compared to those of almost any other era. But Rice in his day was the best, just as McGwire was in his.

He’ll probably never get in, but it’s not his fault. He played the game the way Major League Baseball wanted him to play it. No one screamed foul then. It’s unfair to do so now.

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