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San Francisco Giants legend Barry Bonds and former Red Sox ace Roger Clemens, two superstars dogged by rumors of using performance enhancing drugs, missed being elected in their last year of eligibility.
Ortiz, a 10-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion, will be inducted into the Hall in Cooperstown, New York, on July 24. In his first year of eligibility, Ortiz received 77.9% of the votes cast, just more than the 75% needed for election.
Ortiz also was the subject of steroid speculation after he reportedly tested positive in anonymous survey testing in 2003. MLB’s official testing program went in effect the next year and Ortiz never failed.
Bonds and Clemens were linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs through the 2007 Mitchell Report by senator-turned-baseball-investigator George Mitchell. But neither player ever failed an MLB test for steroids and Bonds only admitted to using substances he said he was told were an arthritis balm and flaxseed oil.
Bonds received 66% of the vote and Clemens got 65.2%.
Rodriguez tested positive for anabolic steroids in 2003, before penalties were in place, and admitted to using “a banned substance” after the results were leaked in 2009.
If the vote were on statistics only, Bonds, Clemens and Rodriguez would have been shoo-ins.
Bonds, who played left field for the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants during his 22-year career, is Major League…
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Source : cnn
