There was a time when players forced afros into ball caps like Dennis Hastert trying on a pair of bicycle shorts; a time when 70 percent of the outfields in baseball were produced by the same company that designed the Brady Bunch’s backyard; a time when baseball’s drug problem was the same as Wall Street’s, shortstops hit .213, and home runs were aided only by Wheaties and Charlie Hough’s fastball.

It was a time when Dale Murphy, Alan Trammell, Don Mattingly and Andre Dawson were kings of their sport, but now, 20 years later, they’re the uninspiring remnants of an era that seems as endearing as a “Charles in Charge” rerun and is treated with about as much deference.

When the results were announced last week, Mark McGwire failed to garner even a quarter of the votes needed for enshrinement in Cooperstown, but he managed to steal nearly 100 percent of the headlines. As the first in a long line of bulked-up sluggers turned media whipping boys, McGwire serves as a case study for what the future holds for many of baseball’s best hitters of the 1990s. Forgotten among the hypocrisy, however, are the last of those who dominated without the use of drugs, shuffled ever further into the recesses of our memories, like an old Frankie Goes to Hollywood album we remember fondly, but never listen to.

Rubik’s Cubes, Atari and “Police Academy” movies may be prime material for sarcastic B-list comedians, but apparently what’s good for VH-1 isn’t worth a Wally Joyner rookie card to ESPN. In a year in which we’ve all heard the perpetual arguments about just how history should remember BALCO’s poster boys, we’ve all but forgotten some of the best of the last generation of non-juiced sluggers.

Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn, two of the best hitters of the 1980s, will be enshrined in Cooperstown this year, but their biggest accomplishments – 2,632 consecutive games, 3,000 hits – came to a crescendo in the 1990s. Ripken was elected as much for the lasting memories of his 2001 All-Star MVP as he was for his 1982 rookie of the year award. Gwynn batted .351 and led the Padres to the World Series in 1984, but most people remember those horrid San Diego uniforms more vividly than Gwynn’s All-Star numbers that season.

Ripken and Gwynn have two things going for them: They were presumably clean, and they played forever. Murphy, Mattingly, Trammell and Dawson were clean, too, but their periods of greatness seem forgotten because they either failed to hang around long enough to entrench themselves in our collective consciousness or neglected to remind us just how great they were, as we all struggled to forget our dalliances with stone-washed jeans and Cyndi Lauper albums.

Murphy and Dawson were as dominant during the mid-’80s as anyone in the National League, but neither appears poised for enshrinement in Cooperstown. Former Boston slugger Jim Rice, who was also a legitimate star during the 1980s, but made his name during the latter part of the preceding decade, looks like a near lock to be inducted within the next few years, however. Rice came just 63 votes short this year, and with a thin ballot of newcomers coming up for election during the next three years, it’s a gap he’s almost certain to close.

But look at the numbers: Over his career, Rice hit .298 with 382 home runs and 1,451 RBI, winning one MVP and making eight All-Star teams. This year, he was named on almost 64 percent of Hall ballots.

Dawson’s numbers: 438 homers, 1,591 RBI, seven All-Star games and an MVP. Oh, and he also stole 314 bases and won eight gold gloves, making a name for himself as one of the best five-tool players in the game before years of sliding across the green-painted concrete that served as an outfield at Olympic Stadium destroyed his knees. Despite clearly superior numbers, Dawson earned 37 fewer votes than Rice.