FORT WORTH, Texas — Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig was kind enough to do a question-and-answer session with members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday before the All-Star Game in St. Louis.

We learned a few things from Selig.
He hasn’t forgotten about all-time hits leader Pete Rose. Selig is still reviewing his case in Rose’s bid to gain entry in the Hall of Fame.
Second, he doesn’t like to divulge what the word “help” means when it comes to MLB and the Texas Rangers. I asked him several different ways what kind of help the Rangers were getting from MLB. He answered the same way every time: He wasn’t going to go into that.
But Selig spent most of the hour talking about steroids and their effect on the game.
He wasn’t happy that Manny Ramirez played in minor league games toward the end of his 50-game suspension, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it because the Dodgers slugger did nothing wrong. The Dodgers and Ramirez followed the rules.
After his 50-game ban for failing a drug test, he was back. Selig would like to see that rule changed.
Selig said he was initially saddened to hear about the Ramirez drug test, but then felt better because that meant the drug-testing policy worked.
He also talked about how the writers who select the Hall of Fame class should go about dealing with the steroids era. He basically put the onus on the voting members, who are entering treacherous waters now as some of the top players from the 1980s and 1990s are up for Hall of Fame consideration.
“You all have to make your own decisions,” he said. “I would not, however, disregard history. There are some traps people seem to fall into. I can’t make that judgment for you. Each player has to be judged themselves.”
Selig is right, and that’s the tricky part.
There certainly have been players who have gotten into the Hall of Fame for doing things far worse than steroids. But in this era of heightened awareness, every player is under extra scrutiny. Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire never failed a drug test, but they’ll likely never go in the Hall of Fame because of the perception that they used performance-enhancing drugs.
The BBWAA talked about forming a committee to set up guidelines on evaluating players from the steroids era, but that move failed in a 30-25 vote.
That decision made sense to me. Do we vote against people because of our suspicions? Unless it comes out that they failed a test, it’s not our job to judge because we think a player cheated.
We’d also have to go back and look through baseball’s history.
Baseball has gone through problems with amphetamines and cocaine, and I’m fairly certain some of those guys are in Cooperstown.
Now Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez could be painted in a different light. Ramirez was caught cheating, and Rodriguez admitted to it. I have no problem with anyone voting against those guys because they bent the rules of the game.
So Selig answered some questions, dodged a couple and left one for the writers to decide. It will be interesting to see what happens.