One of the many wonderful parts of the last 20 years has been the way the Sox have taken up residence in the heads of Yankee fans. That headline should read "...THREE TIME WORLD SERIES CHAMPION David Ortiz..." I'm not really sure how to shoehorn Ortiz leading the greatest comeback in baseball post-season history. And that's not to mention the 2018 ALDS ass kicking and the Wild Card game wipe out this year. Really the last two decades have been so much fun.

It pains me to say this, but Madden... is not wrong. About any of it.

(Ouch! That really did hurt to write)

First of all, {clean in PED testing for 12 years} is a higher standard than {clean in PED testing for a handful of years} is a higher standard than {never tested}. I mean, that's obvious. But Madden agrees that Ortiz was exonerated in the 2003 testing, so we can thankfully set that aside.

Second, AFAICT Madden thinks Ortiz should have been kept out of the HOF because of these reasons:

1. Oritz was friends with a criminal.
2. Ortiz was shot.

Like, he uses Dominguez's accounts of Ortiz's friend to implicate Ortiz, but IIRC Dominguez is on record saying he doesn't believe Ortiz did anything wrong along the way. So it seems Madden is torturing Dominguez's account to get it to demonstrate something it doesn't. I mean, Derek Jeter used to live at a place owned by a guy who has committed all kinds of illegal activity, but "he knows a guy" isn't, on its own, evidence of anything.

A guy who only votes for Jeff Kent should not be throwing stones

For several years, Bill Madden has been part of the Historical Overview Committee which screens the candidates and selects which ones make the Era Committee ballot. I’m not 100% sure he will fill that role for this fall’s ballot which Bonds Clemens & co will be eligible for but I could see him putting up a big stink to try and keep the guys with PED baggage off the ballot entirely