Rafael Palmeiro

I had a chance to talk to former Oriole Rafael Palmeiro about Wednesday's Hall of Fame announcement that the Baseball Writers' Association of America did not vote in anyone for the 2013 induction class . That includes Palmeiro, who was on his third year of the ballot and is one of just four players in the game's history to have at least 500 homers and 3,000 hits. He's also the only one on this year's ballot to have tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug. In 2005, months after he told a congressional committee that he had never taken steroids, a drug test found stanozolol in his system and Major League Baseball suspended him for 10 days.

I had a chance to talk to former Oriole Rafael Palmeiro about Wednesday's Hall of Fame announcement that the Baseball Writers' Association of America did not vote in anyone for the 2013 induction class . That includes Palmeiro, who was on his third year of the ballot and is one of just four players in the game's history to have at least 500 homers and 3,000 hits. He's also the only one on this year's ballot to have tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug. In 2005, months after he told a congressional committee that he had never taken steroids, a drug test found stanozolol in his system and Major League Baseball suspended him for 10 days.

Thank you very much for joining me on this call today. I am saddened that we are here to address this issue, but because of the importance of it, I feel the need to make a brief statement and address your questions. At the outset, let me say that under the rules of the basic agreement and the order of the independent arbitrator, there is an order of confidentiality governing the specifics of this case. I will attempt to state as much as I can and be as forthright as possible, but there will be issues I can't address based on orders imposed on me by the basic agreement and the arbitration process.

The Baseball Writers' Association of America released its Hall of Fame ballot today, and now the next six weeks will be filled with debate on whether some of the biggest names -- and most controversial characters -- will get into Cooperstown's hallowed halls. Players on the ballot for the first time include a few stars that were embroiled in the sport's steroid controversy: namely Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and former Orioles outfielder Sammy Sosa. Mike Piazza, Craig Biggio and Curt Schilling also are first-timers, joining popular holdovers such as Jeff Bagwell, Jack Morris and Tim Raines on the ballot.

THREE DAYS after Rafael Palmeiro's somewhat contrite voice hit the national airwaves, Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan H. "Bud" Selig issued a statement. He wanted the public to know that all eight of this year's steroid suspensions, including Palmeiro's, show that the league's policy is working. But he also took the opportunity to again plug his proposal that intensifies the levels of discipline for failed drug tests. He wants a player suspended 50 games for a first offense, 100 for a second and a lifetime ban for a third.

For the second time in two days, a high-profile member of the baseball community has blasted Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro, questioning the validity of his impressive statistics. One day after Hall of Famer Frank Robinson said Palmeiro's offensive numbers should be erased because he failed a drug test, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling told WEEI radio in Boston he agreed with Robinson. "Yeah. I read something the other day about his career, his career numbers and how a lot of his career numbers coincide with certain dates, and he obviously sat next to me in Washington [before Congress]

Rafael Palmeiro sent up an unmistakable red flag about steroid use on March 17, at least in the mind of John Boe, a California body-language expert. That's when the Orioles first baseman testified before a congressional committee and denied ever using steroids. He punctuated his remarks with a few awkward jabs of his index finger, as if angrily ringing an invisible doorbell. Palmeiro might as well have mimicked shooting himself in the foot, Boe says. "That finger thing, in body-language terms, that's taking a baton and beating people over the head with it and telling them to back off," says Boe, who has analyzed about 10,000 personality profiles and writes frequently about body language.

Rafael Palmeiro was feeling pretty good about himself when he picked up the telephone one day late in the summer of 1988. His father was on the line, and he knew the conversation would quickly steer toward baseball. Palmeiro had always known his father to be tough on him, but he had three hits that day for the Chicago Cubs, helping him keep pace with Tony Gwynn in the race for the National League batting title. Jose Palmeiro had watched the game on television from Miami, and what he said would help transform a remarkable career.

Among the many photos that adorn Sam Perlozzo's home is a snapshot taken five years ago, on the night that Cal Ripken collected his 3,000th career hit in Minnesota. Ripken is standing beside Perlozzo, then the Orioles' third base coach. His signature is scrawled across the bottom. And each time a replay is shown of Eddie Murray rounding third base after hitting his 500th home run, also in an Orioles uniform, he's reaching to shake hands with Perlozzo. "It's pretty neat stuff," Perlozzo said.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - The souvenir stand tells the story of a proud franchise awakening from a deep slumber. Don Eney has been stocking the shelves at Camden Yards since 1997, a time when Orioles fans would line up to buy jerseys with Cal Ripken's No. 8, Brady Anderson's No. 9 and Mike Mussina's No. 35. Those stars left, and that era ended. Sales plummeted. For the past two years, Eney has filled the shelves with nameless and numberless Orioles jerseys. The rare fan who wanted a Jay Gibbons jersey or a Melvin Mora jersey had to wait.

When Eddie Murray's sculpture is unveiled at Camden Yards this afternoon, if the sun catches the bronze just so, onlookers might get a glimpse of themselves in the reflection. It's fitting for the Orioles' most prolific hitter ever. Writers, and even some fans who didn't like Murray's personality, projected their own bitterness onto him for his entire career. For the fans who didn't care what they read, only what they saw, they'll have their Eddie. They can cheer the man today, and later they can bring their kids to the statue, point and say, "There's one of the best switch hitters to ever play the game.

No sport lends itself more to comparative statistical analysis than major league baseball. Crunch the numbers in key areas, stack them up against the others in the league and simple conclusions can be made. Doing this with the Orioles' first half of the season, in comparison to the other 13 teams in the American League, here's what can be gleaned: These Orioles can't field or throw. They can't run. They can't get on base. They can't score with runners in scoring position.

Eutaw Street homers are always a fun little novelty at Camden Yards. This year, they are almost the norm. On Friday, two homers - Asdrubal Cabrera's in the third and Matt Wieters' in the sixth - landed on the street beyond the right-field scoreboard and flag court. It was just the second time two have reached Eutaw in one game in the stadium's history. Rafael Palmeiro did it twice on April 11, 1997 against the Texas Rangers. So there was a little history on Eutaw Street on Friday and there will be more the next time one lands there this year.

The person who perhaps could be helped or hurt most if the National Baseball Hall of Fame offered specific instruction to its voters on whether candidates with a history of using performance-enhancing drugs should be enshrined has his own opinion as to what should happen. Leave it up to the qualifying members of the Baseball Writers Association of America to make their own decision, former Orioles great Rafael Palmeiro says. The Hall of Fame doesn't need to offer any advice beyond what it already suggests about character and integrity, he believes.

Rafael Palmeiro strolled into the big sports memorabilia show at the Hilton Hotel in Pikesville Sunday wearing an orange sweater, jeans and a hip goatee that made him look like the bass player in a jazz band. He was nearly three hours late. His flight from Texas had been delayed. Mechanical problems, Palmeiro explained as a crowd quickly formed to have the former Orioles great sign baseballs and bats and whatever else was thrust in front of him. "First time back in Baltimore?"

August 27, 1997: Rafael Palmeiro hit a game-winning grand slam as the O's beat the Royals.

WASHINGTON - In the aftermath of Rafael Palmeiro's steroids-policy violation, the man who accused Palmeiro of using the drugs in a book six months ago declined yesterday either to gloat or to claim his credibility had been upheld. Rather, Jose Canseco - who seems to make a habit of saying the unexpected - came to the defense of his former Texas Rangers teammate. In a daylong series of media interviews, Canseco and his attorney, Robert Saunooke, raised doubts yesterday about whether Palmeiro was recently injecting performance-enhancing drugs - as Canseco accused Palmeiro of doing in the early 1990s.

After taking heat for several years over its drug policy, Major League Baseball imposed wider testing and harsher penalties for steroid use in January. The new testing regime bagged its first big name yesterday, when it was announced that Orioles slugger Rafael Palmeiro had been suspended 10 days for failing a drug test. Though Palmeiro denied intentionally using steroids, some observers of the doping saga called his positive test a partial validation of the crackdown. "I think it lends some credence to the policy that a player of Palmeiro's caliber could be caught," said Will Carroll, who writes regularly about sports medicine and is author of The Juice: The Real Story of Baseball's Drug Problems.