David Ortiz Hit Another Career Milestone Today After He Became The 1 Millionth Person To Call Dan Shaughnessy An Asshole

If I was 9-years old right now, figuring out myself, what do I really like, what do I identify with, what sports do I think are cool, how could I ever even stumble upon baseball as an example to make a decision on in the first place? As it stands right this second, Major League Baseball is more of a concept than a tangible thing that exists in the world. Because the billionaire owners refuse to pay their players fair wages. And, even if baseball weren't locked out, it would be a burden to even go out and seek out highlights from Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis, Jazz Chisholm, any of the myriad cool, young players that are in the game today. And then if I wanted to find out about the legends of the game the generation before me? According to the BBWAA, there weren't any. Nope. Not a one. 

This has been talked about ad nauseam to the point where I cannot believe two sides still exist. I thought we were done. I thought the whole point was to wait until the final year and then get Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens into Cooperstown with an overwhelming majority of the vote. My silly ass thought that was the punishment: two obvious, first ballot Hall of Fame players being forced to wait until their last year of eligibility for breaking the rules. Which, really leads me into an argument of semantics. If everyone is breaking the rules, is anyone breaking the rules? Was Barry Bonds juiced to the gills slugging dingers off every pitcher also juiced to the gills any less impressive than two guys *not* on the sauce? Who the fuck can assume Jeff Kent was captain high and mighty and never had a syringe enter his person during his entire playing career, I almost respect the guys who cast blank ballots more than the dweebs who pick and choose which guys they assumed played clean.

I'm an unabashed Red Sox fan, David Ortiz is an obvious Hall of Famer. As is Andruw Jones, as is Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Barry Lamar Bonds, the late-90s-and-2000s were filled with some of the most iconic players the game has ever seen. Baseball has always been run and infiltrated with overly incompetent, super self-righteous dickheads who fail to grasp that keeping these guys out of the Hall of Fame does more harm than good. It shines such a brighter light on an era the MLB wishes to erase from its memory, completely washing its hands of its part in all of this. Shaughnessy deserves to get shit on, just as everyone else in this voting process does, but even Ortiz can't help but laugh about it. Especially since he doesn't appear to be getting punished for his role, however minor, in all of this. All signs, as of today, are pointing to David Americo Ortiz as being a first ballot Hall of Famer. As he should be. As Bonds and Clemens should have been. 

Now if you want to debate Ortiz vs. Frank Thomas and Edgar Martinez as to who is actually the best DH of all time, be my guest. I would love that. Because it would mean for the first time in decades we were debating baseball, and what took place between the chalk, not what might've allegedly happened in broad daylight in front of these very same reporters who sat on their hands and didn't do a goddamn ounce of reporting while Mark McGwire was foaming at the mouth with andro in between answering questions. These same people doling out the punishments for this generation of baseball are just as guilty and have sprinted away from the blame for damn near 30 years. I wish it was just a Shaughnessy problem, that's a much smaller flame to quell. ESPN and local papers across the country controlled the narrative so well, faulting the players and players only every step of the way, that Major League Baseball still hasn't recovered. By allowing this generation of writers to continuously act like they played no hand in what took place, the MLB will continue to lose credibility with generations of fans, both present and future.