I am A Yankee Fan first and foremost, as with Daniel, talent is talent, but my vote against him is he was given special treatment as a hitter and only a one-way player. I know he was a good glove at 1st base, but he would make it as having been a DH over the majority of his career in Boston.
This would be another one-way player to get into the HoF because he was a nice guy and the face of the team. His name was on the Mitchell Report and has had (it has been said) known use of PED's along with his buddy Manny but wasn't given tests like the other players.
His style of hitting was to make the plate only 10" wide, the outside 10"! He stood on the batters box line and leaned over the plate giving the pitcher less than half the plate to throw the ball for a strike. A pitcher would miss the to the inner half of the plate, it was long gone. If it was a strike on the outer half of the plate it was a double or single (HR, sometimes) because he could still reach it and put good wood on it. At first, some of the pitchers would throw inside to him and (sometimes) hit him, getting tossed out of the game just for throwing a strike. With all that body armor, he could care less if you came inside on him because if you didn't hit him he would step back and put a charge into it. I think everyone knows, if you are in the Show, one can hit a fastball...right, well how is it possible for a right-handed pitcher to throw anything but a fastball to him? If one throws a curve he will let it hit him or if not inside enough to hit him...it is in his wheelhouse and gone. Splitters and chang-ups would get him out...good ones!
So, even though Ortiz is a great baseball talent and on that alone should be a shoe-in for the Hall. Forget about all the innuendos of PED use.
I say Nay for the HoF...Only because he had the advantage of playing 1/3 of the games each year as the team's DH and didn't wear down as most other players did.
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