And it's in, Ortiz has been elected to the Hall

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by G1911

Bonds and Clemens didn’t test positive in all the years the testing was in place either. It makes zero logical sense that Ortiz and Ortiz alone is forgiven while everyone else continues to be denied. Ortiz was nowhere near as good as Bonds, Rodriguez, Clemens.

This years ballot seems to have very little to due with the 2 dominating factors of recent history: statistical performance and steroid status. Ortiz is let in for no consistent logical reason, Schilling is denied because for the first time ever people want to invoke the character clause for off field behavior (can anyone cite any single example of a player kept out of the hall for off field behavior?) to punish outspoken political views the media writers as a group hate, Vizquel has a historic plummet over his much more serious off the field allegations.

Hell, how does Gary Sheffield get more votes than Alex Rodriguez? This ballot appears the result of different than normal standards and outright double standards.

Schilling will never get in after his evil rants. Far beyond the "character clause" with him.

[nat]

Schillings problem wasn't that his rants were political, it's that they targeted the guys voting on the hall of Fame. If you want to win an election, treating the electorate badly is a very poor strategy. (See, eg, both "makers and takers" and "deplorables", and note who didn't win their respective elections.) There are plenty of conservatives in the hall of Fame.

And this year in particular, his vote totals may be due, in part, to asking to be removed from the ballot. The hall declined to do so, but individual voters may have honored his wishes.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Schilling will never get in after his evil rants. Far beyond the "character clause" with him.

You might think it is a good thing that it is being invoked for the first time ever, but keeping him out for "evil rants" absolutely falls under the character clause, unless one is saying that the Hall should completely ignore it's own rules to keep out vocal supporters of the political opposition. Which.... Well, that's not surprising these days at all.

[Orioles1954]

Character clause and yet Cap Anson is still in. What a hoot!

[Jason19th]

I do not understand the Schilling debate. I would argue that while being a jerk doesn’t help the majority of pitchers with similar records are not in the Hall see Luis Tiant, Ron Guidry, Vida Blue, Bob Welch, Dave Stewart, Bucky Walters, Orel Herschiser, Lew Burdette, Kevin Brown, Dave Key, David Cone, David Wells, Billy Pierce, Allie Reynolds, Don Newcombe and many more that I cannot think of right now.

[Orioles1954]

Originally Posted by Jason19th

I do not understand the Schilling debate. I would argue that while being a jerk doesn’t help the majority of pitchers with similar records are not in the Hall see Luis Tiant, Ron Guidry, Vida Blue, Bob Welch, Dave Stewart, Bucky Walters, Orel Herschiser, Lew Burdette, Kevin Brown, Dave Key, David Cone, David Wells, Billy Pierce, Allie Reynolds, Don Newcombe and many more that I cannot think of right now.

But, but the bloody sock!

[Shoeless Moe]

So Papi never did test positive? Everyone is just assuming he did? or he did....why the uproar?

I'm in Chicago so paid little attention to Big Papi and the Red Sox, and the Yankees for that matter, unless they were in the playoffs or Series.

I personally always thought Frank Thomas juiced, look at his melon.

And he played football, and in the 80's I'd say 75-80% of every football team juiced.

And Big Frank got in.

But could be completely wrong. That's always a possibility.

[Jason19th]

There is no way Frank Thomas used steroids. He was one of the players who publicly said that he would refuse the initial survey testing so that more then 5% of the players failed and ensured that there would be widespread testing.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by Shoeless Moe

So Papi never did test positive? Everyone is just assuming he did? or he did....why the uproar?

He tested positive during the first round of testing. That's not speculation - Ortiz himself has admitted it.

[cardsagain74]

Originally Posted by Orioles1954

Character clause and yet Cap Anson is still in. What a hoot!

Ain't that the truth. Unofficial rule: character issues only count much for people whose most front page news time was prior to the 1980s. If you were an awful person before that, it often doesn't matter and you are still revered (unless you threw games, bet on ones you managed, or chopped up puppies and kittens).

And I'm not even sure the chopped part would matter.

This rule often applies outside of baseball as well.

[SyrNy1960]

Curt Schilling said, “I would rather not be judged by the writers, but by the former players and historians who make up the Hall’s Era Committees. That appears to be the best route to Cooperstown.”

I believe most of us would agree with that. Like many of us who have our own individual personal views, attitudes, and justifications about the PED guys, so do the writer’s, and unfortunately, it’s only their votes that count.

I believe most are smart enough to know that those players we talk about used PEDs (don't need a positive test or a smoking needle to know that), and there are many others that we don’t know about. We don’t know all who used; how much they used, and how long they used; and we will never know. People can put whatever spin they want on it, in order to justify how they see it, but we all know!

With that being said, I have no issues with Ortiz being in the Hall of Fame. Except that I'm a die-hard Yankee fan, so that part hurts.

[Jim65]

Papi failed a test. Manfred said it might have been a false positive but that he failed a test is a fact.

If Papi was a disliked guy, like Barry Bonds, writers would've used that test to justify not voting for him. But since hes well liked, enough writers gave him the benefit of the doubt or looked the other way to vote him in.

Writers have proven they cannot be fair and objective. Baseball needs a new voting system.

[SyrNy1960]

Originally Posted by Jim65

Papi failed a test. Manfred said it might have been a false positive but that he failed a test is a fact.

If Papi was a disliked guy, like Barry Bonds, writers would've used that test to justify not voting for him. But since hes well liked, enough writers gave him the benefit of the doubt or looked the other way to vote him in.

Writers have proven they cannot be fair and objective. Baseball needs a new voting system.

I agree 100%!!!

[Kzoo]

Originally Posted by Jim65

Writers have proven they cannot be fair and objective. Baseball needs a new voting system.

Absolutely!

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Jim65

Papi failed a test. Manfred said it might have been a false positive but that he failed a test is a fact.

If Papi was a disliked guy, like Barry Bonds, writers would've used that test to justify not voting for him. But since hes well liked, enough writers gave him the benefit of the doubt or looked the other way to vote him in.

Writers have proven they cannot be fair and objective. Baseball needs a new voting system.

"Failing" a test that's riddled with problems and that itself is a failure is a big fat nothing.

https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2022...amer-says.html

From that article
Manfred said it was possible that Ortiz never registered a positive test in 2003 because of the questionable accuracy of those tests. He also said the 2003 testing should not come into play when determining players’ legacies (or Hall of Fame candidacies).

“I think whatever judgment writers decide to make with respect to players who have tested positive or otherwise been adjudicated under our program, that’s up to them,” Manfred said in Oct. 2016. “That’s a policy decision. They’ve got to look into their conscience and decide how they evaluate that against the Hall of Fame criteria. What I do feel is unfair is in situations where it is leaks, rumors, innuendo, not confirmed positive test results, that that is unfair to the players. I think that would be wrong.”

In most real testing programs, there's a backup sample that gets tested once the first one tests positive. That's to protect against lab mistakes. (and has been used years later to prove and retroactively punish doping once a specific test for say EPO becomes available. )

A wildly inaccurate test taken as fact by the NYT with no corroboration and no specifics is essentially worthless. You may as well just measure biceps and call anyone over a certain number a doper.
The real programs like the Olympic and cycling ones will clearly state what was found, and these days often how much it differs from the normal range or if there even is a normal range.

[Jim65]

Originally Posted by steve B

"Failing" a test that's riddled with problems and that itself is a failure is a big fat nothing.

https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2022...amer-says.html

From that article
Manfred said it was possible that Ortiz never registered a positive test in 2003 because of the questionable accuracy of those tests. He also said the 2003 testing should not come into play when determining players’ legacies (or Hall of Fame candidacies).

“I think whatever judgment writers decide to make with respect to players who have tested positive or otherwise been adjudicated under our program, that’s up to them,” Manfred said in Oct. 2016. “That’s a policy decision. They’ve got to look into their conscience and decide how they evaluate that against the Hall of Fame criteria. What I do feel is unfair is in situations where it is leaks, rumors, innuendo, not confirmed positive test results, that that is unfair to the players. I think that would be wrong.”

In most real testing programs, there's a backup sample that gets tested once the first one tests positive. That's to protect against lab mistakes. (and has been used years later to prove and retroactively punish doping once a specific test for say EPO becomes available. )

A wildly inaccurate test taken as fact by the NYT with no corroboration and no specifics is essentially worthless. You may as well just measure biceps and call anyone over a certain number a doper.
The real programs like the Olympic and cycling ones will clearly state what was found, and these days often how much it differs from the normal range or if there even is a normal range.

I think your post kind of proves my point, people say the leaked info is flawed when it comes to Ortiz but writers use the same info to justify not voting for less popular players like Sammy Sosa and Carlos Delgado.