His power explosion times perfectly with his failed test. But Ortiz is held to a completely different standard from everyone else. So is Schilling, for very different reasons.
The Hall has generally done a good job, I think, of rewarding performance. Some players took more ballots than they should have, some borderline guys are in and some out (which seems unavoidable, when you are down to the borderline players the differences are tiny and there logically must be a line somewhere) but the general standards have been followed well. Players who were not popular or well-liked have historically still gotten in if their performance merited it (Dick Allen is taking too long). Hell, Cepeda was a drug trafficker who was also arrested for threatening a man with a gun AND a borderline candidate and got in by the Vets committee, as most borderline players of his caliber eventually do.
This ballot seems to represent a clear shift, with baseball performance having a much smaller role in the results than it has historically. Schilling is a vocal conservative with much negative press from the voter base that generally has the opposite politics and seems to (as some voters have written openly about) be punished for this (if one wants to claim it's because Schilling requested to be kept off after being snubbed for 9 years, he was still punished for this for the first 9 years). Clemens and Bonds are kept out for steroids but more voters seem happy to ignore that Ortiz is guilty too because he's likable and doesn't have the reputational, attitude and woman-related accusations Bonds and Clemens do (well he does, with the restraining order after intimidating and threatening his ex, but again, the standards are different for Ortiz). Vizquel's nomination, who faces serious charges of sexual and woman-beating misconduct, went from likely to completely dead.
The counter-argument of the character clause is usually brought up about now, but it has never been used for off-the-field conduct to dismiss candidates before. Nor does it seem relevant to giving Ortiz preferential treatment while keeping out better players guilty of the same thing. At least Bonds and Clemens were Hall of Fame quality players before they starting dosing.
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