Talking Points: Writers take swing at Bonds, Clemens and whack Biggio, too

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The sanctimony of baseball writers reached a new high — actually, a new low — with this year’s Hall of Fame balloting. OK, we can understand making a statement about The Steroid Era by not voting for Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens. But Craig Biggio? C’mon!

In their apparent zeal to punish everybody who had anything to with baseball during the 1990s, the holier-than-thou writers failed to elect somebody who had 3,060 hits, 1,844 runs, and ranks fifth all-time with 668 doubles. Oh, and as far as we know, he was never linked with performance-enhancing drugs.

So, as a group, the writers wanted to make a statement about The Steroids Era. The problem is that they should have done their jobs and made a statement while it was going on.

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So, it has been a few days since Alabama made grits out of Notre Dame. It has taken Talking Points that long to overcome the awe we felt at the Crimson Tide’s performance.

And as we ponder the BCS title game, mindful that there will be only one more of those before a playoff is instituted, we arrive at an important realization: Thank goodness Ohio State was on probation.

By finishing 12-0, the Buckeyes likely would have landed in the title game against the Irish, had they been eligible. It probably would have been a close game, lauded by fans and critics as a battle between the two best teams in the country. As Alabama proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, that would have been a falsehood.

So let’s start planning for next year’s championship game and give an automatic berth to the winner of the SEC title. Any BCS final without the SEC would be a travesty.