Trump calls on Baseball Hall of Fame to admit Roger Clemens

[G1911]

Originally Posted by dgo71

I don't see how acknowledging that the survey test was flawed, and then pointing out the literally dozens of times Ortiz was tested by MLB and passed each and every time, is "leaping to explain" anything. Those are just facts. Also, it's not really "actual material evidence" if the league states the results of the survey test were compromised. Manfred at the time said that there were "legitimate scientific reasons to doubt some results" and that false positives had been reported due to perfectly legal, over-the-counter supplements. This is also in no way to say that this proves unequivocally that Ortiz was clean his entire career. But it seems a stretch to call Ortiz "a known cheater" when he passed a myriad of tests from 2004 through the end of his career.

And just to point out, this isn't a personal vendetta against Clemens either. If the situations were reversed, I would make the same points about Clemens that I made about Ortiz. I'm not even saying that I think Ortiz deserved the HOF and Clemens doesn't. While Clemens was found "not guilty", that's a world apart from being "innocent". And there was considerably more smoke around Clemens accusations. So right, wrong or indifferent, I definitely can at least understand why the voters, time and again, have treated these situations differently.

Clemens also passed "dozens of times" (I doubt either were tested this many times), and never failed. If that's proof for Ortiz being innocent, how is it not proof for Clemens being innocent? If the situations were reversed, you would clearly not make the same argument because you can make the same argument right now - if this is your reason for letting Ortiz off, then Clemens also passes that exact same bar. He actually clears it better because there are 0 failed tests to dismiss instead of 1. This is, yet again, a perfect example of wildly different standards being used with one very strict one for one player and a very loose one for the player we want to let off.

Unlike Ortiz. If a positive test has to be thrown out because it *could* be a false positive, which is always possible and always has been in every incarnation of the tests, then why is the mere accusation proof enough for Clemens? It is true that there is more evidence for Ortiz than Clemens. Nobody is able to locate any actual evidence against Clemens; the same is just not true for Ortiz.