David Ortiz Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame


On Brookline Ave., above Mass Pike, the David Ortiz Bridge connects the Fenway Park neighborhood to Kenmore Square in Boston. From there, it’s about four hours to Cooperstown, NY, which will soon be home to another enduring landmark of Ortiz’s massive legacy.

Ortiz, whose solemnity and extravagance helped make the Boston Red Sox the most successful franchise of the new century, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday. In his first year on the ballot, Ortiz was the only candidate to pass the 75 percent threshold required for election, receiving 77.9 percent of the vote from the Baseball Writers Guild of America.

The selection was the authors’ 10th and final verdict on the nominations of longtime superstars Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, whose connections to performance-enhancing drugs have broken records. Bonds, with the most 762 home runs in Major League Baseball history, received 66 percent of the vote, while Clemens, who won a record seven Cy Young Awards, took 65.2.

Two other leading figures also dropped out: Curt Schilling, who hit more than 3,000 strikes, and Sammy Sosa, who hit more than 600 homers. Making jokes about the lynching of journalists online, Schilling received 58.6 percent of the vote, compared to Sosa, who has strong ties to steroid use, only 18.5 percent. Like Bonds and Clemens, they may be elected by small committees in the coming years.

Ortiz will be honored at a ceremony in Cooperstown in late July. With Jim Kaat and Tony OlivaThose elected by committees in December. At that time four more were elected and will take office after his death: Bud Fowler, Gil Hodges, Minnie Minoso and Buck O’Neil.

Ortiz received 307 out of 405 author’s plays, becoming the second Hall of Famer from the Red Sox to break the curse. He also joins Dominican Republic-born Pedro Martinez, who took office in 2015. Their team in 2004 won the franchise’s first title in more than eighty years—perhaps a cosmic punishment for Babe Ruth’s infamous sale to the Yankees.

Ortiz, a burly, friendly, left-handed power hitter, cut a Ruthian figure with a similar appetite for the big moments. In three World Series – all victories – he reached .455 with 1,372-plus slowing percentage at base, both holding records for hitters with at least 50 plate appearances. Ortiz was born in St. He was named the World Series’ most valuable player when he went 11 to 16 with two homers and eight walks against Louis.

In choosing Ortiz on the first try, most voters chose not to punish him for his connection to the steroid era: a positive test for performance-enhancing drugs In 2003, when baseball ran survey tests (without penalties) that had to remain anonymous. In 2016, just before Ortiz retired, Commissioner Rob Manfred spoke about “legitimate scientific questions about whether these were really positive or not,” and Ortiz claimed he had never knowingly cheated.

In any case, Ortiz achieved almost all of his success during the testing period that began in 2004 with penalties. Traded as a minor league player by Seattle in 1996 and released by Minnesota six years later, Ortiz became a star in Boston, winning 10 All-Star teams and seven Silver Slugger Awards as a designated hitter. In his career, he had 541 home runs, 1,768 batting and .286 batting averages, .380 base percentages and .552 batting percentages.

Teaming with Ortiz in the middle of the Boston roster for most of the 2000s, Manny Ramirez had better overall stats but still didn’t reach Cooperstown. In his sixth appearance on the ballot, Ramirez garnered just 28.9 percent of the vote, reflecting many writers’ stances against players suspended for steroid use.

The Hall of Fame has never offered specific guidance on how to judge the so-called steroid era, but the institution instructs writers to consider not only players’ on-field record but also their “integrity, character, and sportsmanship.” It is up to individual voters to interpret what this means, and some have distinguished between drug use in the pre- and post-test periods. (The New York Times does not allow authors to vote.)

Ramirez was suspended twice, and Alex Rodriguez once. Reaching 696 homers in his career, Rodriguez made an astonishing public comeback, appearing everywhere on television and social media. However, he failed to persuade the writers to ignore his mistakes and received 34.3 percent of the vote in his first appearance at the polls.

As a Yankee in 2009, Rodriguez admitted to his past use of steroids, asking people to “judge me from this day forward” at a press conference. But he soon returned to banned drugs, admitting to investigators that he used performance-enhancing drugs from 2010 to 2012, which led to his suspension for the 2014 season.

Among other candidates on the ballot, a third baseman, Scott Rolen, continued to build momentum towards the final election. He spent most of his career in Philadelphia and St. Louis, Rolen received 63.2 percent of the vote, up from 52.9 percent last year and 35.3 percent in 2020. There are only 17 third-ranking players in the Hall of Fame – the least for any position – and Rolen has earned eight Gold Gloves.

Todd Helton is on a similar trajectory, reaching 52 percent from 44.9 last year and 29.2 in 2020. The .316 average, .414 base percentage and .539 slowing percentage were phenomenal when Helton played his home games in the goal scorers’ paradise, Colorado; The only players to top all three numbers (with at least 3,000 license plates) are Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Stan Musial, Babe Ruth, and Ted Williams.

Schilling, who collected 71.1 percent of the vote last year, was on his way to the election with more votes than any other candidate. Schilling, who was recognized as one of baseball’s leading performers in October, has since strengthened his rhetoric on social media, asking the Hall of Fame to remove his name from the ballot because it doesn’t respect writers. Hall declined the request, but made another run for him.



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