Goodyear, Ariz. -- Kenny Lofton's first time on the Hall of Fame ballot was his last. He blames steroids.
No, Lofton wasn't using them. He says he played clean his whole career.
Lofton blames steroids for knocking him off the ballot and keeping him out of Cooperstown because he had to play against players who were using them. To add to his frustration, several players who have been linked to steroids through positive tests or rumors are still on the ballot.
In December, Lofton and 23 other players, including the steroid-tinged foursome of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Mike Piazza, appeared on the ballot for the first time. To get elected to Cooperstown a player needs 75 percent of the votes cast by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America with 10 or more years experience. For a player to stay on the ballot he needs to get at least 5 percent of the vote.
Lofton received 18 votes, 3.2 percent of the 569 votes cast. Bonds (36.2), Clemens (37.6), Sosa (12.5) and Piazza (57.8) easily made the cut.
"It crushed me," said Lofton, a spring-training instructor with the Indians.
Lofton played in the big leagues from 1991 through 2007. For much of that time, he was considered one of the best leadoff hitters in the game. He won four Gold Gloves for his play in center field, went to six All-Star games and ranks 15th all time with 622 steals.
In his career, he hit .299 with 2,428 hits, 1,528 runs, 383 doubles, 116 triples, 130 homers and 781 RBI. He appeared in the postseason 10 times, making two trips to the World Series.
Lofton, who spent 10 seasons with the Indians, says all those stats ring hollow.
"With me being off the ballot, what I accomplished during the steroid era meant nothing," he said. "You look at the people who voted for the Hall of Fame. I think there might have been 600. They still voted for people who were cheating the game.
"It boggles my mind that the people you know cheated, who admitted they cheated, are still on the Hall of Fame ballot. That is sad. It's really sad for baseball."
MLB banned steroids in 1991, but did not start testing players until 2003. In general terms, the steroid era is said to have started in the late 1980s and lasted into the 2000s.
Lofton said he never used steroids or amphetamines and was never tempted. He was afraid of the long-term effect steroids would have on his body. As for greenies, he said: "They scared me. I'm hyper enough as it is."
There was another reason as well.
"That's not who I am as a person," he said. "I'm an honest person, I'm a straight-forward person. I will tell it like it is. I respect this game to a tee.
"For me to go out and cheat it that way, that's not respecting the game I love. I just feel the reason these guys cheated was because of the money. They didn't care about the Hall of Fame. If you would have cared about the Hall of Fame, you wouldn't have even thought about cheating. It was all about money."
A player can stay on the Hall of Fame ballot for 15 years if he keeps getting 5 percent of the vote. With Lofton on the outside looking in, and players such as Bonds, Sosa, Mark McGwire, Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro still on the ballot, he can only wonder "What if".
"I just felt my Hall of Fame chances got diminished because I was not using steroids," he said. "I felt like if I was a steroid user, I would still be on the ballot."
The knife does not stop cutting there.
"To this day, I am still glad I was never caught up in it," said Lofton. "I'm still glad I did it the way I did it. I'm just sad that my numbers are not being looked at the way they should be. Put me in the situation with the steroid era and say what would have happened if these guys weren't using steroids and where are my numbers at?"
Lofton, 45, blames MLB and the players association for "dragging their feet" and not instituting drug testing sooner.
"Now we're to a point where players are still doing it," he said. "The punishment is not severe enough. They're keeping Pete Rose out of the game because of the severity of what he did, but you see guys cheating consistently over and over, but they still have a chance to be in this game. This is not right.
"They need to say if you're cheating, you're out of the game for a year or two. And that's it."
Players who test positive for performance-enhancing drugs face a 50 game suspension for the first offense, 100 for the second and a lifetime ban for a third.
There is a school of thought among some BBWAA voters that says since so many players were using steroids during that period, the playing field was level and that it is all right to vote for players associated with steroids. Especially since testing wasn't introduced until 2003.
"That's wrong. They cheated and they knew they were cheating even if there wasn't testing," said Lofton. "There is still a quote-unquote secret list out there. If people want to find out who was cheating, they need to release that list. Maybe that would make it easier for the writers to vote.
"Everybody wasn't cheating in the game. Every year we have over 700 players in the big leagues. We've only had a couple of names publicized off that list. Why not let all them out?"
Lofton was referring to a list of 104 players who tested positive in 2003 during survey testing to determine whether baseball needed to test for steroids. Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Sosa and David Ortiz's named were leaked off that list.
Eighteen of the 24 players appearing on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time in December didn't get the required 5 percent of the vote. They included former Indians Sandy Alomar Jr., Julio Franco and Jose Mesa.
Lofton's only recourse is the Hall of Fame's veteran's committee, but its wheels grind exceedingly slow. If he gets a chance at all, he might need a walker to make his way to the microphone at Cooperstown to make his induction speech. Lofton knows that, but he also knows something else.
"In my heart, based on the era I played in, I'm a Hall of Famer," he said. "Everyone compares people's numbers to someone else. Tim Raines was a great player. I can't put anything against him."
Raines, a dominant leadoff hitter in the National League for 23 seasons, received 52.2 percent of the votes in December in his sixth year on the ballot.
"I don't think Tim Raines is that much better than me," said Lofton. "I've got to compare myself to guys I played against, but again, they don't look at leadoff hitters as important parts of the game anymore. My skill set got diminished by the steroid era. . . . People can say I'm crying wolf, but I'm just telling it like it is."