Yes, Gaylord Perry was apparently a cheat, but I am not sure he actually cheated as much as you think he might have. Perry said a lot of things about doctoring up the baseball, but he also said much of that was a psychology trick to toy with a batter's mind. I haven't read his book so I don't know what he said in it. I personally saw him pitch a few times. He fidgeted a lot and wiped his hair, his hat and glove in order to make the batter think he was loading up the ball, but a lot of that was just part of an act. I once tried using vaseline on a baseball (messing around playing catch, never in a game) to see what it did to a ball, and I didn't think it did much. But I was a novice and Perry was a master at it.
I've read accounts from umpires who said they watched Perry like a hawk and yet were never able to catch him doctoring up a baseball. Believe me, they tried. I have no doubt Perry greased up baseballs from time to time, I just have doubts he did it as often as some might think. He was only thrown out of a game once (in a long career) for greasing up the ball.
Perry got inducted into the HOF in 1991, before the steroids era. Maybe voters might have felt differently about his induction had his name come up after the PED scandal. Who knows. For a long time cheating to get an edge (greasing up the ball, stealing catcher's signals, stealing signs from the third base coach) was considered part of the game, but the PED scandal, and more recently the Houston Astros using cameras to steal signs, has probably changed people's attitudes about that.
