OT: Big Papi gets elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Bonds/Clemens/Schilling/Sosa off the ballot.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:23 PM ^
Those shut out of the HOF made their choices and their million$, and in Shilling's case...well, Shilling knows the hate he spreads.
The HOF voters have spoken.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:30 PM ^
Lesson for ourselves and our kids. Don’t be an asshole. No one wants to vote for someone who is a dick. Clemens, Bonds, Schilling and Sosa are as unlikeable as they come.
If those 4 were as beloved as Big Papi, they would be in the Hall…even with PED’s.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:38 PM ^
Sammy Sosa is a wonderful human being. He did more for humanity in three years than you will do in your entire lifetime. The fans adored him and he adored them back. A bunch of pencil necks in the Chicago press did not like him because he was brash, cocky and probably represented everything they wished to be. They have forced this fate onto him. Tragic, in my view.
January 25th, 2022 at 8:21 PM ^
Corked bat and steroids during his HR chase with Big Mac. Nice guy, but...
January 25th, 2022 at 9:05 PM ^
My problem with the whole thing is the players getting punished when every owner, executive, and coach knew what was going on, and they don't face any consequences. Those guys were the reason we all watched baseball back then, and they are the only ones being punished.
January 25th, 2022 at 9:11 PM ^
That’s a slippery slope
January 26th, 2022 at 12:37 PM ^
I must be one of the few who quit watching during that period.
January 25th, 2022 at 9:21 PM ^
The bat incident was five years later but good job, good effort.
January 25th, 2022 at 8:25 PM ^
Sammy Sosa is a wonderful human being. . .
he was brash, cocky
Maybe he was awesome. I don't know. I just thought that was funny.
January 26th, 2022 at 8:08 AM ^
Hey, buddy. He cheated! And he got caught. 'Nuff said.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:52 PM ^
Then the name should be changed to Hall of Guys Who Weren’t Dicks (HOGWWD). It’s not a Hall of Fame.
January 25th, 2022 at 8:38 PM ^
The only thing dumber than sports hall of fames is how seriously sports fans take them. If I were to spend my time going to a baseball museum I would want to learn about interesting guys like Doc Ellis. Instead you get a fictitious story about baseball's origins and players selected for statistics and longevity, not how interesting they were.
I actually think instead of "inducting" these bozos into the Hall of Fame, they should just add a Steroids Wing where their stories are told and they're publicly shamed.
January 25th, 2022 at 9:24 PM ^
It took forever to get Buck O’Neil in the Hall. Great news that he’s in, but this should happened long ago.
January 25th, 2022 at 11:28 PM ^
Maybe you can visit the Doc Ellis exhibit in the LSD Hall of Fame.
January 26th, 2022 at 10:58 AM ^
Doc Ellis' name in the phone book would appear as Ellis, D.
January 26th, 2022 at 12:13 PM ^
When the Arizona State baseball team votes to kick the captain off the team because they believed he was a bad teammate.
Listen to them. The HOF did when it came to Barry Bonds.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:56 PM ^
Hmm… Cobb was as large of a piece of shit as you will find yet first in.
January 25th, 2022 at 8:07 PM ^
Check out Cobb. He got an unfair portrayal from media. Not saying he was a Saint but check it out.
January 25th, 2022 at 8:34 PM ^
No former players came to his funeral - he alienated everyone.
January 25th, 2022 at 8:50 PM ^
Is your last name Simon????
January 25th, 2022 at 9:10 PM ^
Not exactly true.
Please read Charles Leerhsens book, Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty.
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/ty
And specifically about his funeral, Ive read many sources that almost unanimously tell a different but true story: Cobbs funeral was a private ceremony as requested by his family.
January 25th, 2022 at 11:49 PM ^
That's just shallow thinking...
January 25th, 2022 at 8:24 PM ^
Again I'll post these links:
https://www.fishstripes.com/2020/6/3/21275510/ty-cobb-book-review-a-terrible-beauty-charles-leerhsen
https://www.mlb.com/news/ty-cobb-history-built-on-inaccuracies-c178601094
Was Cobb a saint? Certainly not, but he also wasn't the monster popular culture thinks he was. Shame first on Al Stump, the drunken liar who ghost-wrote Cobb's 'autobiography' while and after Cobb died of cancer, and then shame on the writers and producers of that awful 1994 Cobb movie starring Tommy Lee Jones.
Please read the Charles Leerhsen book Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty.
Leerhsen did a great job of sorting out and debunking much of what was believed about Cobb. And yes, he did confirm some less-than-savory things about Cobb. But he did seem to prove beyond much doubt that Cobb was hardly a monster and that Cobb lived a life very much less racist than many of his peers and society in general during his lifetime.
January 26th, 2022 at 10:25 AM ^
Definitely if you read Leerhsen's book you'll come away with a different opinion of Cobb than the long-running narrative. Unfortunately Ken Burn's baseball documentary came out before this book and largely continued to propagate many of the exaggerated stories.
January 25th, 2022 at 11:47 PM ^
Hmm...might want to rethink that
January 26th, 2022 at 10:29 AM ^
You are wrong.
Ty Cobb, descended from Georgia abolitionists, was a non-racist, tough but clean player, respected by his peers and friendly to children. He advocated for black players to play on MLB teams and frequently showed up at Negro league games.
After his death, he was wrongfully and shamefully slandered by an unethical hack named Al Stump, who fabricated stories about Cobb out of whole cloth. See Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty by Charles Leerhsen if you're interested in who Ty Cobb really was
January 25th, 2022 at 8:25 PM ^
Don’t think it was their personalities that kept them out but the fact the all used steroids. Schilling really is a piece of work but not many athletes are as big of a jerk as Bonds was. Probably only Tiger Woods can match him for being a huge prick
January 26th, 2022 at 6:54 PM ^
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January 26th, 2022 at 7:16 AM ^
Not sure why you put Sosa in that list.
January 26th, 2022 at 9:55 AM ^
Schilling can be pain in the ass and definitely has his opinions, but his tweet about Big Papi's induction showed nothing by class, dignity and respect to his former teammate.
Congrats Big Papi, you deserve it. They love to talk about the Mt. Rushmore of Boston athletes, usually Ted Williams, Bobby Orr, Bill Russell and Larry Bird, then Brady as the Pats representative, but you and Brady clearly are the 2 faces on that Mt. Rushmore of the golden age that we've had over the past 20 years.
4 Dominican players now in HOF. 2 are Red Sox.
January 26th, 2022 at 9:57 AM ^
Politics and everything else aside... What even is Schilling's case to get into the HOF? That he played a game with a scrape on his ankle? Wow... what a warrior!
He went to 5 all-star games in a nearly 30 year career, and never won a cy young. How is that a HOF resume?
January 26th, 2022 at 10:46 AM ^
He carried 2 teams to WS titles. He clearly has HoF stats. It is not close.
ARod, Bonds, and Clemons are all top 15 players ever. They should be in. Bonds is literally the greatest player in the 130 year history of the game.
January 26th, 2022 at 11:14 AM ^
I cannot comprehend how some people think this is some kind of great justice being done, considering some of the players already in the HOF and the fact that a bunch of petty, self aggrandizing, non-athlete sportswriters decide the sanctity of the game.
The steroid era was part of baseball, MLB willfully turned a blind eye and profited greatly over increasing viewership, but now wants to pretend it never happened? Bud Selig oversaw that shit show and he is in the HOF.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:23 PM ^
Big Papi never did steroids?? Good for him.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:29 PM ^
Can't tell if being sarcastic or not, but there were whispers of a failed test by Ortiz, but considering most of his career was played after testing was implemented and the fact that he had a great relationship with fans/press gives him a certain amount of goodwill that Bonds/Clemens never had.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:48 PM ^
It's not Bonds/Clemens fault that there wasn't testing. It is Bud Selig's. He turned a blind eye to an obvious situation and basically forced the hand of players who wanted to remain competitive in that environment. I don't hold them blameless for what they did, but frankly if Bonds and Clemens hadn't used, someone else would have. As a result, an entire era is tainted; but it was still Baseball, and it still must be recognized by the Hall of Fame.
And the idea that just having a testing regimen, wholly inadequate though it is, immunizes Baseball from having players that juice is nonsense. Even the most sophisticated testing systems are beatable, and most sports do not have testing standards that are all that high.
I'm not going to throw around specific names, but there is basically no question that significant numbers of athletes in all big-money major sports use PEDs. Including significant players in Major League Baseball; I strongly suspect a number of players that I generally like. Testing just isn't capable of stopping everything, and so there will be athletes that use, and they will succeed, and so others will use as well just to keep up or find a slight edge.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:09 PM ^
A lot of people hate Lance Armstrong but including him in mix, 24 of the top 25 cyclists (not #24) either tested positive for or admitted the use of the PEDs. It seems to me he either beat opponents on a level playing field or since he never tested positive, he used/cheated less so should be allowed to keep his titles.
I think we can recognize accomplishment while recognizing the flaws. Maybe no one should have to take down the banner because the governing organization is flawed.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:21 PM ^
Who is #24?
Every cyclist he shared a podium with was connected with doping. Ulrich, Pantani, Basso, all of them. The whole field was doing it. He didn't cheat "less," but he did indeed work hard, as he claimed--it was just that the doping regimen was part of the hard work. Every edge, including the juice.
His problem was the arrogance and the push to destroy those who attacked him. And, frankly, it still might not have come out if he hadn't tried to come back after his first retirement.
January 25th, 2022 at 9:11 PM ^
Yep, Armstrong's problems were:
- He was/is an arrogant dick
- He was/is an arrogant AMERICAN dick
- He was/is an arrogant American dick who set out to hurt the lives of people who questioned him.
- All of the above, plus his doping program was better funded and more successful than others of the era.
That all said, what was done to him was ridiculous. He did what every other top rider was doing, in an era when it wasn't effectively policed.
It is even more ridiculous when one considers the recent success of Team Sky and its "marginal gains'.....uhh, yeah.
SRJK is right though, if he stayed retired, he may have kept his titles. As it is, commentators are not even allowed to talk about him.
January 25th, 2022 at 8:33 PM ^
Cycling was a perfect example of what happens when the sport's governing body completely fails to properly enforce rules. Since doping wasn't really being stopped, it got to the point where if you didn't dope, you could barely even hang on as a professional rider.
Armstrong realized this when he got to the pro tour, and chose, like almost every other pro rider, to dope. I don't blame him any more than all the other riders. They were a product of a tour that completely failed to enforce doping rules.
Baseball, before steroids were banned, was not much better.
You can't expect people to not dope if you don't enforce the rules against it. Not when there are multi-million dollar contracts on the line. If the different between being out of baseball or making $10 million a year is testosterone therapy, a lot of guys are going to do it.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:51 PM ^
I get what ur saying about doing what they needed to do to remain competitive but Bonds and Clemens were putting up hall of fame numbers before that era started.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:31 PM ^
The sad thing is we’ll never know for sure - not just with Papi, but every player of his generation. At the very least, it’s safe to say he sure never looked like a dude who did steroids.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:50 PM ^
Seriously? Ortiz sucked before he went to Boston. It's no coincidence that 2003 is when he suddenly became a good hitter.
Bonds can at least claim he was a great player before he start juicing. Ridiculous that Ortiz got in but Bonds didn't.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:38 PM ^
Agreed 100%. Bonds had combined 400 home runs with 400 stolen bases before the shit. No ballplayer had done that. He started in on 'roids and HGH because, with the Mark and Sammy show happening, that accomplishment went unrecognized. Ortiz didn't start bashing until he went to Boston and teamed up with Manny Ramirez, a noted juicebox.I don't believe this is in any way coincidental.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:54 PM ^
I was dating a Twins fan in college so I saw a lot of Ortiz with them. He was definetly an ascending player before going to Boston. Hit his athletic prime and a short porch in right field at the same time. It wasn’t steroids.
January 26th, 2022 at 10:40 AM ^
Yup. And I remember going to White Sox games when Sammy Sosa was with the club and wondering who that skinny little beanpole was. Shortly after moving to the Cubs he was nearly unrecognizable to anyone who had seen him play for the Sox, he had bulked up so much so quickly.
I am indifferent to whether or not they let juicers into the HOF. I just don't care about baseball anymore and never will again.
January 25th, 2022 at 7:39 PM ^
David Ortiz literally tested positive for steroids.
January 25th, 2022 at 6:25 PM ^
The fact that writers get to vote and hold grudges and don’t vote for players because of off field stuff is insane. Stop being so self important and vote based on ability.... LOU WHITAKER SHOULD BE IN THE HALL OF FAME!!!!!!!!!
January 25th, 2022 at 6:29 PM ^
And Lolich and Freehan
January 25th, 2022 at 6:31 PM ^
I think Whitaker eventually makes it in through one of the secondary committees.
But should have made it through a vote.