It’s not a steroid issue; it’s voters refusing to step down from a horse so high it’s registered in Denver.
David Ortiz was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday (77.9% of the 394-member vote; he needed 75%, per BBWAA’s induction criteria). Besides Yankee fans, who doesn’t love “Papi?” The “Curse of the Bambino” lifter legitimized the often-targeted Designated Hitter position to the tune of 541 home runs and seven top10 MVP finishes. He brought three World Series trophies to the city of Boston, which he expletively called “ours” in an unscripted speech to help snap a mourning Fenway Park back into jubilance shortly after the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings.
He also tested positive for steroids in an anonymous 2003 survey conducted to determine if performance-enhancing drug (PED) use was rampant enough within baseball to warrant disciplinary measures; it was.
However, Ortiz’ FOX Sports co-panelist and friend Alex Rodriguez – earning only 34.3% of the vote in his first year of eligibility – tested positive in the same survey, a revelation that prefaced “A-Rod’s” admission to prior steroid use in 2009. That, coupled with the by-the-numbers all-time great’s 2014 suspension for violating MLB’s PED policy, vis-à-vis, his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal – sealed a fate no improbable master course in image resuscitation could undo.
Do not believe the “steroid card” when voters play it. Baseball writers, in large, eidetic-recall “Big Papi’s” big grins that lit up every frame. Also burnt into their brains: A-Rod’s sweat each time it made the lens equally perspire while the cameraman suddenly became a tabloid freelancer-for-hire, the reporter promptly put on a shortlist for police interrogator school as well.
Even on the redemption tour, A-Rod has long been the poster child for polarization in ways Ortiz has averted. Interestingly enough, A-Rod eventually owned up to his steroid use at each stopgap, while Ortiz has remained mostly dormant after a single burst of dismissal that has never been properly placed under the same microscope.
A-Rod aside, it’s simply no Hall of Fame without Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, who are now off the ballot after garnering 66% and 65.2% of the vote, respectively, in this, their final year of eligibility. Seven MVPs. Seven Cy Youngs. This pair has not once tested positive for substances somehow responsible for hijacking their forever intertwined legacy all the same. Statistical review begot suspicion, and suspicion begot blacklisting. “Thank you for inspiring generations, now there’s the door.”
“The Hall” was established in 1936 to honor the best players, at each position, from every era.
Was Barry Larkin the best shortstop in the 1990s?
Are “Trevor Hoffman” and “lights out” synonymous phrases?
Who did Harold Baines play for?
It’s not the Hall of Fame anymore. But it’s not the “Hall of Moral Fiber” they would like you to believe it is, either. We have an unofficial “Hit King” kept out because he bet on the sport as he managed it. Meanwhile, the official hit king lived long enough ago that the statute of limitations on the far severer crimes he is purported to have committed have expired.
Clemens rubbed the media the wrong way when he fought for his good name back. Bonds irked them with general standoffish tendencies. The “anti-Ken Griffey, Jr.” (lambasted himself by the “old guard,” who felt mocked by his backward cap; there’s really no winning in baseball) never played their game, so their revisionist agenda is to pretend he did not change the fabric of his.
When the writers try to explain their votes, even less sense is made. It is contradictory to value the human element-removed “Wins Above Replacement” (WAR) sabermetric while also declaring “tie goes to the more exemplary, sociable citizen.” Because sometimes, an attitude is what makes the ballplayer.
Select modern steroid users – even those simply accused – have been made lepers, while others gain entry. Many Hall-of-Famers even championed earlier PED variants by another name. Therefore, the forthcoming “Today’s Game” alternative ballot – wherein Hall inductees or All-Star selectees of a shared era, and not the writers, hold voting power – should be the primary ballot. These days, an “on-the-fence” Hall candidate’s qualifications can ride on tenured game-reviewers they may have left hanging once upon a time in the dog days of August after the second leg of a day-night doubleheader.
Just because it’s your job to be talked to, doesn’t mean it’s their job to talk to you.
