Ken Caminiti should not be a member of the San Diego Padres Hall of Fame. Not now. Not ever.
That’s difficult to type, given the complexity of Caminiti, a revered, supremely talented, painfully flawed man who, some say, saved baseball in a city endlessly starved for the kind of winning he sparked.
When the team announced last week that it decided to induct Caminiti and Ted Williams as its 2016 class, though, it caused more than a few to wince.
In a startling June 2002 story written by Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, Caminiti detailed his rampant use of steroids after a shoulder injury — particularly when he led the Padres as the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1996.