Murphy’s numbers aren’t far off either: 398 homers, 1,266 RBI, two MVPs, seven All-Star games and five Gold Gloves, while playing a far more challenging position. His ballot tally this year: 50 votes.

Then there’s Trammell. Outside of Detroit, few people remember just how good he was during the 1980s because he was overshadowed by Ripken for the majority of the decade. But compare Trammell’s numbers to Barry Larkin, widely considered the top shortstop of the early- and mid-’90s, and there’s almost no difference. Trammell hit .285 with 185 homers, 1,003 RBI and four gold gloves, ranking in the top 10 in MVP balloting three times. Larkin hit .295 with 198 homers and 960 RBI during a more hitter-friendly period and won just three Gold Gloves. Larkin appears headed to Cooperstown when he becomes eligible in 2010; Trammell got 73 votes.

The case for Mattingly is a bit harder to make, since his career – at least the dominant part of it – lasted only about seven years before chronic back injuries robbed him of his ability to drive the ball. But while we discount Mattingly because injuries cut his career short, Kirby Puckett was elected in his first year on the ballot. Compare their numbers, and there’s really not a significant difference.

Mattingly: A .307 career batting average, 222 home runs, 1,099 RBI, nine Gold Gloves and an MVP Award.

Puckett: A .318 lifetime average, 207 homers, 1,085 RBI, six Gold Gloves and an ALCS MVP.

Puckett’s career ended early because of a degenerative vision problem, probably caused by a pitch that hit him in the eye. Mattingly’s career was truncated under much less sensational circumstances. Puckett’s plaque is in Cooperstown, Mattingly earned 54 votes this year.

Are Mattingly and Murphy legitimate Hall-of-Famers? Probably not, but their numbers certainly put them in the discussion. But while Puckett is in Cooperstown, and Rice and Larkin will likely join him, their counterparts are barely mentioned. So if the numbers are so close, why the discrepancy in the voting? The only explanation is perception.

The accomplishments of some of the best players of the ’80s have been overshadowed by the numbers the next generation produced, and their stories have been forgotten thanks to the drugs that enabled that next generation’s massive statistics.

Because McGwire – and down the line, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmiero and Barry Bonds – supposedly padded their legacies with drugs designed to build muscle, to extend careers, to defy convention, they will find the doors to Cooperstown awfully hard to open.

Because Murphy, Mattingly and company played it straight, they, too, will be left waiting for an invite that may never come.

The ubiquity of steroids during the past 15 years has not only tarnished the careers of those who used (or those we assume used), but it has destroyed our perceptions of just how good those who came before actually were.

We remember the stars of the 1950s and ’60s through rose-colored glasses, romanticized the way only baseball can be. Grainy footage in Ken Burns documentaries is all the proof we need of their greatness.

We remember the stars of the 1990s through a drug-laced prism, tainted and unnatural. The numbers, we now know, don’t add up, and while there was no testing to catch them in the act, we can still impose punishment now.

Baseball’s romantic past and salacious present are two ends of the same spectrum, and somewhere in between are some of the best players of a decade that will be remembered more for ugly uniforms and bad haircuts than Mattingly’s sweet swing, Trammel’s steady glove or Dawson’s cannon arm.

It’s easy to paint the entire decade of the 1980s with a broad brush (and probably in shades of bright orange and pale blue), but just because Men Without Hats had a hit, and anyone with the name Corey could become a teen idol, it doesn’t mean the entire decade should be reserved for clip shows and tribute bands.