It’s not that difficult to make the case why David Ortiz doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame.
There were allegations of a failed drug test in 2003, an asterisk that grew larger as Ortiz continued to play like an All Star at an age when he should have been a mere pinch hitter or full-time recreational golfer.
Also, for the vast majority of his career Big Papi was a designated hitter, a guy who played cheerleader while his more-athletic teammates chased down line drives and stabbed blistering ground balls.
Then, there are the numbers. Yes, Ortiz was a good hitter, but was he really great? Was he better than Edgar Martinez, Seattle’s terrific designated hitter (boasting a .312 lifetime batting average) who retired in 2004 and still stands outside the gate to Cooperstown?
See, it’s easy to make a case for keeping David Ortiz out of the Hall of Fame. But it’s even easier to make the case why he deserves to be there.
Let’s start with the dirty laundry. In 2009, Ortiz and three other players were outed as being among 104 players to fail a 2003 drug screening that was meant to be anonymous. In an interview with the Boston Globe last year, Ortiz said that back then he was buying over-the-counter supplements in his native Dominican Republic – and he wasn’t all that concerned about the ingredients. “I was taking whatever supplements were good at the time,” Ortiz said, “stuff that everybody was using that would sustain me in my workouts.” Ignorance is no excuse for cheating, but Ortiz wouldn’t be the first professional athlete to unwittingly ingest a banned substance. And he has an important statistic to back his defense: Since 2004, when Major League Baseball initiated drug screenings with penalties, Ortiz has not failed a single test.
As for the argument that a designated hitter doesn’t belong in Cooperstown, it just doesn’t pass the fan test. Excluding pitchers, baseball’s heroes are largely defined by their exploits at the plate. For every spectacular play in the field – Willie Mays’s catch in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series and just about anything Ozzie Smith did at shortstop come to mind – there are dozens upon dozens of high-drama, “holy cow” hits. Who thinks of pitching or outfield defense when they think of Babe Ruth?
Finally, there are the numbers. Call up David Ortiz’s page on baseball-reference.com, and check out what he did over a 20-year career: 10 All-Star teams, 2,472 hits, 632 doubles, 541 home runs, 1,768 RBIs and a .286 batting average. In his 295 (so far) postseason at-bats, he has hit 17 homers and 21 doubles with a .295 average. In 14 World Series games, his average is .455.
Unless Ortiz has a change of heart during the off-season, he will be eligible for enshrinement in Cooperstown five years from now. Leading up to that first up-or-down vote by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, fans and writers on both sides of the debate will exchange statistics and allegations. Statisticians will dive even deeper, rendering Ortiz not as lovable Big Papi but as a spreadsheet – a complex mathematical formula that tells them whether he is worthy of a spot alongside the legends of the game.
Perhaps it’s the word “game” that provides the greatest argument for Ortiz’s induction. Few players in baseball history have shown as much love for the fans, his adopted city and the sport itself as David Ortiz. And even fewer have done so with as much joy, playfulness and, in times of tragedy, compassion.
It’s easy to forget that baseball, at its heart, is a children’s game. In so many endearing ways, Big Papi never forgot that. The powers that be in Cooperstown shouldn’t either.