David Ortiz only player elected to Baseball HOF for this year

[GregTheGreat657]

https://sports.yahoo.com/hall-of-fame-david-ortiz-bbwaa-eligibility-barry-bonds-roger-clemens-231609578.html

[NewYorkExpress]

Didn't David Ortiz test positive for a PED in 2003?

Why are the writers voting him in, but not Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, A-Rod, etc.?

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Ryan Howard got more votes than Justin Morneau, Mark Teixeira, and Prince Fielder? He's my favorite of the 1B of that era, but a few people being crazy there.

Also, I would probably vote for Papi (unless a strategic vote for someone else) and definitely not Teixeira, but that gap is absolutely wild. I think before he was shot, Papi was more of a 3rd/4th ballot guy, but the perfect storm of media personality pluses (and the negatives of the other 3 big names) really helped him out.

Aside from that, Sheff not making any progress and instead getting overtaken by Andruw Jones is severely disappointing.

[I’m not Stu]

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens never tested positive for PEDs because they used a Whizzinator.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

It's an absolute travesty that baseball's all-time hit king and all-time home run king are both not in the Hall of Fame

[I’m not Stu]

Barry Bonds tested negative for PEDs every time.

[brucejoel99]

I'd normally be inclined to say "f**k it. Everybody in baseball did PEDs for an entire era of the game. Hell, Willie Mays is in the hall. Let 'em in!!," but Bonds abused his wife & Clemens groomed a 15-year-old, soooo... yeah. That's that, then.

Didn't David Ortiz test positive for a PED in 2003?

Why are the writers voting him in, but not Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, A-Rod, etc.?

The PED "evidence" against Ortiz is nothing more than the unprovable claim of that 2003 anonymous survey testing & the (frankly racist) musings of white Boston sportswriters who had personal beef with him, namely Dan Shaughnessy.

[7,052,770]

Didn't David Ortiz test positive for a PED in 2003?

Why are the writers voting him in, but not Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, A-Rod, etc.?

The voters just put in whoever they want without any regard for consistency.

[KaiserDave]

I'd normally be inclined to say "f**k it. Everybody in baseball did PEDs for an entire era of the game. Hell, Willie Mays is in the hall. Let 'em in!!," but Bonds abused his wife & Clemens groomed a 15-year-old, soooo... yeah. That's that, then.

Didn't David Ortiz test positive for a PED in 2003?

Why are the writers voting him in, but not Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, A-Rod, etc.?

The PED "evidence" against Ortiz is nothing more than the unprovable claim of that 2003 anonymous survey testing & the (frankly racist) musings of white Boston sportswriters who had personal beef with him, namely Dan Shaughnessy.

What did Willie Mays do?

[brucejoel99]

I'd normally be inclined to say "f**k it. Everybody in baseball did PEDs for an entire era of the game. Hell, Willie Mays is in the hall. Let 'em in!!," but Bonds abused his wife & Clemens groomed a 15-year-old, soooo... yeah. That's that, then.

Didn't David Ortiz test positive for a PED in 2003?

Why are the writers voting him in, but not Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, A-Rod, etc.?

The PED "evidence" against Ortiz is nothing more than the unprovable claim of that 2003 anonymous survey testing & the (frankly racist) musings of white Boston sportswriters who had personal beef with him, namely Dan Shaughnessy.

What did Willie Mays do?

Amphetamines. All the amphetamines.

[KaiserDave]

I'd normally be inclined to say "f**k it. Everybody in baseball did PEDs for an entire era of the game. Hell, Willie Mays is in the hall. Let 'em in!!," but Bonds abused his wife & Clemens groomed a 15-year-old, soooo... yeah. That's that, then.

Didn't David Ortiz test positive for a PED in 2003?

Why are the writers voting him in, but not Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, A-Rod, etc.?

The PED "evidence" against Ortiz is nothing more than the unprovable claim of that 2003 anonymous survey testing & the (frankly racist) musings of white Boston sportswriters who had personal beef with him, namely Dan Shaughnessy.

What did Willie Mays do?

Amphetamines. All the amphetamines.

Not really comparable to the regimens of Bonds and Clemens.

[Klobmentum Mutilated Herself]

I'd normally be inclined to say "f**k it. Everybody in baseball did PEDs for an entire era of the game. Hell, Willie Mays is in the hall. Let 'em in!!," but Bonds abused his wife & Clemens groomed a 15-year-old, soooo... yeah. That's that, then.

Didn't David Ortiz test positive for a PED in 2003?

Why are the writers voting him in, but not Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, A-Rod, etc.?

The PED "evidence" against Ortiz is nothing more than the unprovable claim of that 2003 anonymous survey testing & the (frankly racist) musings of white Boston sportswriters who had personal beef with him, namely Dan Shaughnessy.

The 03 NYT survey is also the only "evidence" against Sammy Sosa, too. Yeah, Sammy blew up forty pounds of muscle and lost all his speed in a couple years, but the eye test doesn't hold up in court. He wasn't namedropped in the Mitchell Report, any of Canseco's books, and never failed a drug test. As far as concrete evidence goes, if Papi is clean, then so is Sammy.

[brucejoel99]

I'd normally be inclined to say "f**k it. Everybody in baseball did PEDs for an entire era of the game. Hell, Willie Mays is in the hall. Let 'em in!!," but Bonds abused his wife & Clemens groomed a 15-year-old, soooo... yeah. That's that, then.

Didn't David Ortiz test positive for a PED in 2003?

Why are the writers voting him in, but not Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, A-Rod, etc.?

The PED "evidence" against Ortiz is nothing more than the unprovable claim of that 2003 anonymous survey testing & the (frankly racist) musings of white Boston sportswriters who had personal beef with him, namely Dan Shaughnessy.

What did Willie Mays do?

Amphetamines. All the amphetamines.

Not really comparable to the regimens of Bonds and Clemens.

Eh, he did them for the same reason nonetheless.

[dead0man]

Amphetamines were used by lots of ball players (and regular folk) back then.  Mantle and Hank Aaron also used them.  They aren't performance enhancing in the same way the stuff the dudes in the 90s were using.  Hell, they aren't even as enhancing as the coke many ball players used in the 80s was.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

As a diehard Sox fan, I'm ecstatic Papi was a first ballot HoFer--deservedly so. The steroid allegations against him are murky at best and there's no evidence that he ever failed another test.

That being said, it is an absolute travesty that Bonds and Clemens did not get in. It's proof that the writers only care about personalities and not consistency. For better or for worse, the likes of Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sosa, et al literally saved baseball in the late 90s and early 2000s. Their contributions to the game are worthy of being remembered in a dumb museum whose only purpose is to remember the greats of baseball. Steroids do not turn bad baseball players into Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens. Also, there are already cheaters (known and unknown) in the hall. Either be consistent and put them all in or remove the ones who cheated. Plain and simple.

[7,052,770]

Amphetamines were used by lots of ball players (and regular folk) back then.  Mantle and Hank Aaron also used them.  They aren't performance enhancing in the same way the stuff the dudes in the 90s were using.  Hell, they aren't even as enhancing as the coke many ball players used in the 80s was.

So it's not the intent behind the cheating, it's the effectiveness that counts?

[Illiniwek]

Absurd move from the "baseball writers", and I like Papi. but all of the 'roids legends, Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, ARod, etc. deserve to be in. Throw an asterisk on the plaque, I don't care. But these were the best of the era and saved baseball. Screw the people who vote in their buddy Ortiz but not the people who were objectively better than him.

[dead0man]

Amphetamines were used by lots of ball players (and regular folk) back then.  Mantle and Hank Aaron also used them.  They aren't performance enhancing in the same way the stuff the dudes in the 90s were using.  Hell, they aren't even as enhancing as the coke many ball players used in the 80s was.

So it's not the intent behind the cheating, it's the effectiveness that counts?

it's not the only thing that "counts", but yes, how effective it is plays a part.  If a felon is in possession of a weapon, should her sentencing be different if she has pepper spray vs an AR15?  Should the speeder that is 5 over the limit be treated the same as the speeder that is 75 over?

[7,052,770]

Amphetamines were used by lots of ball players (and regular folk) back then.  Mantle and Hank Aaron also used them.  They aren't performance enhancing in the same way the stuff the dudes in the 90s were using.  Hell, they aren't even as enhancing as the coke many ball players used in the 80s was.

So it's not the intent behind the cheating, it's the effectiveness that counts?

it's not the only thing that "counts", but yes, how effective it is plays a part.  If a felon is in possession of a weapon, should her sentencing be different if she has pepper spray vs an AR15?  Should the speeder that is 5 over the limit be treated the same as the speeder that is 75 over?

I don't think that analogy works, because it's not like the amphetamine users had access to steroids but didn't use them to cheat less. And even if you come up with a better one (my car can only go up to 75 mph and yours can only get to 80, and we both drive at maximum speed in a 65?), I'm still not sure that comparing to actual crimes really works, because cheating at baseball just isn't comparable to breaking laws.

Maybe the best analogy is that you pocket a couple extra $500 bills in Monopoly, and decades later I play a newer edition of Monopoly that has $1,000 bills and I pocket a couple of those.