David Ortiz elected to Hall of Fame; Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling denied in final ballot bid

Former Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins and outfielder Bobby Abreu cleared the 5% threshold to remain on the ballot for another year.

Former Boston Red Sox's David Ortiz gets ready to throw out a ceremonial first pitch before a baseball game against the New York Yankees in Boston in 2019.Read moreMichael Dwyer / AP

by Scott Lauber

Published Jan. 25, 2022, 6:36 p.m. ET

David Ortiz loomed so large over the 2013 postseason that one nickname was no longer enough to capture the essence of the man. Several veteran teammates devised a solution. As Big Papi slugged the Boston Red Sox to a World Series triumph, they began to call him “Cooperstown.”

A few minutes after 6 p.m. Tuesday, Cooperstown called back.

Ortiz, among the most feared hitters of the last 20 years, was the lone player elected to the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He overcame traditionalist voters’ biases against the designated hitter and a dubious link to performance-enhancing drugs to eke in with 77.9% of the vote (75% is needed), and joined Juan Marichal, Pedro Martínez, and Vladimir Guerrero in the club of Hall of Famers from the Dominican Republic.

By electing Ortiz in his first year on the ballot, the BBWAA avoided pitching a second consecutive shutout. None of the other 29 candidates — including Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Curt Schilling in their ballot swan songs after 10 years of rejection, or Alex Rodríguez in his first go-around — topped 66%.

Schilling came within 16 votes of election last year, then asked to be removed from the ballot. The Hall of Fame denied his request, but many voters disregarded him anyway, failing to check his name and dropping the former Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Red Sox ace to 58.6%, his lowest voting percentage since 2018.

As Schilling sank like a pebble, another former Phillie continued his rise. In his fifth year of eligibility, Scott Rolen climbed to 63.2%, up from 52.9% last year, 35.3% in 2020, 17.2% in 2019, and 10.2% in 2018. The eight-time Gold Glove third baseman appears well-positioned to be elected within the next year or two.

Of the other Phillies alumni, Billy Wagner held relatively steady at 51%, Jimmy Rollins (9.4%) and Bobby Abreu (8.6%) got enough votes to return to the ballot for another year, and first-time candidates Ryan Howard (2%) and Jonathan Papelbon (1.3%) were one and done.

Ortiz will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in a July 24 ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y. He will be joined in the Class of 2022 by Jim Kaat, Tony Oliva, and the late Gil Hodges, Minnie Miñoso, Buck O’Neil, and Bud Fowler, who were elected in November by the Hall’s era committees.

Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, and Schilling are now eligible to have their cases taken up by the Today’s Game Committee, which will meet in December. It’s not clear whether they would find more support from a 16-member panel of Hall of Famers, executives, and media than from an electorate of nearly 400 writers, many of whom wrestled with undeniably Hall-worthy numbers that were stained by PED linkage (Bonds, Clemens, Sosa) and social-media invective (Schilling).

BBWAA members have served as the Hall of Fame’s voting body since 1936. But it wasn’t until 2007, when juiced slugger Mark McGwire debuted on the ballot, that the “character clause” became a prominent talking point.

In the Hall’s intentionally vague instructions, it directs voters to consider a player’s “character” but does not elaborate. And so, beginning with McGwire, the process became as much about morality as on-field achievement, never mind that the Hall of Fame’s membership is dotted with segregationists, amphetamine users, and others who wouldn’t qualify for sainthood.

The debate only ratcheted when Bonds and Clemens arrived on the ballot together in 2013. For a decade, the home run king’s vote totals moved in lockstep with the seven-time Cy Young winner. Bonds and Clemens were never more than 1.4% apart but didn’t creep above the 50% mark until 2017, three years after the Hall reduced the maximum term on the writers’ ballot from 15 years to 10 in what seemed like an attempt at running out the clock.

It may have worked. Bonds and Clemens got their highest vote totals yet on their 10th try, coming in at 66% and 65.2%, respectively. It’s possible they still wouldn’t have gotten enough detractors to change their minds before 2027, but nobody will ever find out.

“Barry Bonds, I don’t think there’s a human being capable of doing what he did when he played,” Ortiz said on a Zoom call Tuesday night. “To me, the guy’s a Hall of Famer way before all the talk. Same with Roger. When I see these guys, I don’t even compare myself to them. Not having them join me at this time, it’s hard for me to believe, to be honest with you.”

In a statement on Twitter, Clemens said he “put the HOF in the rear view mirror ten years ago. I didn’t play baseball to get into the HOF. I played to make a generational difference in the lives of my family. Then focus on winning championships while giving back to my community and the fans as well. It was my passion.”

The end of Bonds’ and Clemens’ candidacies coincides with the start of Rodríguez’s. A-Rod may present an even more complicated dilemma for voters. While Bonds and Clemens played most of their careers in the Wild West days before MLB instituted drug testing and never actually flunked a test, Rodríguez lied about using PEDs before getting caught and suspended for the entire 2014 season.

At 34.3%, Rodríguez fared slightly worse in his ballot debut than Bonds and Clemens. He may wind up polling in tandem with Manny Ramírez (28.9%), another of the best right-handed hitters of his generation who twice got suspended for failing drug tests.

The voters didn’t hold Ortiz’s PED-related association against him, perhaps because of questions related to the reliability of the 2003 survey tests. MLB had not yet implemented its testing program and used those tests, the results of which were supposed to remain anonymous, to ascertain the prevalence of drug use in the sport. Before Ortiz retired in 2016, commissioner Rob Manfred said the 2003 tests resulted in several false positives.

Ortiz didn’t fail a test in the subsequent 13 years. His numbers are overwhelming. In addition to 541 home runs and a .931 on-base plus slugging, including a .552 slugging percentage, he’s one of four players with at least 2,400 hits, 600 doubles, 500 homers, and 1,700 RBIs. The others: Hank Aaron, Bonds, and Albert Pujols.

And Ortiz created his legend in the postseason, from his extra-inning walk-off hits in back-to-back games in the Red Sox’s epic comeback over the Yankees in the 2004 AL Championship Series to a grand slam in the 2013 ALCS against Detroit. In the 2013 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Ortiz went 11-for-16 (.688) with two doubles, two homers, six RBIs, and an absurd 1.948 OPS.

That’s how a player gets to be known as “Cooperstown.” It’s how you get into Cooperstown, too.