David Ortiz rips Dan Shaughnessy for absurd Hall-of-Fame ballot (NSFW)

If David Ortiz is David Ortiz, then Dan Shaughnessy just became the bullpen phone.

Last week, the veteran Boston Globe columnist made his Hall of Fame ballot public and revealed that he had only voted for Jeff Kent for reasons that can only be described as holier-than-thou, writing

"“Here I am voting only for second baseman Jeff Kent. Kent gets this vote because he was dominant at his position in the time he played and there is no whiff of cheating or off-field scandal.”"

Shaughnessy seemingly ignored the fact that Kent donated $15K to uphold Prop 8 – which would have instituted a ban on gay marriage in California – in the late 2000s. He also lumped Ortiz in with confirmed PED users to justify being the only Globe voter to exclude him, even though Ortiz never officially tested positive for anything, and has been essentially exonerated numerous times, including by the commissioner of baseball in 2016.

David Ortiz fires back at Dan Shaughnessy

This week, Ortiz, currently back in Boston, was a guest on WEEI‘s Merloni and Fauria, hosted by his former Sox teammate Lou Merloni. The beloved Sox slugger said that he wasn’t “keeping track” of the ballots, and started out magnanimously:

"“I basically let the writers do their thing, you know? I think I did pretty good while I played, with reporters and writers.The one thing I understand, it was that they were trying to do their job, and I was trying to do mine. So, I always take my time to let them complete their job, you know what I’m saying? So, if any writer or any reporter, you know, holds something against me, I mean, they’re human.I only heard about one writer that didn’t vote for me, from Boston, and you know, not a surprise. He always gave everybody a hard time. But, that’s life, man. You can’t stop moving because of it.You gotta respect everybody’s opinion. At the end of the day it is what it is, you know. I don’t really, really let anything stop me from doing what I want to do. I’m that type of person, I’m always moving forward, life is too short to be worried about all the kinds of bull**** coming from people. I try to enjoy life.”"

The former designated hitter was liked by many media members, so much so that Ortiz haters have been vehemently claiming that if he is elected to the Hall next week, it will only be because he was ‘nice’ to the media.

Ortiz was often an upbeat, happy member of his Sox teams during his career, but he also touched on the “second chance” he received when he survived getting shot multiple times in the Dominican Republic in June 2019:

"“I try to enjoy life, I try to make sure that everybody around me looks at the positive side of life… God gave me the opportunity, a second chance to be out here… I live my life to the fullest.”"

However, he didn’t mince words when asked about Shaughnessy:

"“You know Dan Shaughnessy has been an a**hole to everybody, so what can I tell you? It’s not a surprise for me, it’s not a surprise for you. He didn’t vote for me, so what can I do?"

When the hosts asked if Shaughnessy’s behavior was an “abuse of power,” Papi hit him harder than he hit the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS:

"“He’s got no damn power, bro. You know that. He’s just got the power of the pen, to write whatever he believes, but everybody knows that he’s an a**hole.”"

Will David Ortiz be a first-ballot Hall of Famer?

In his first year on the ballot, Ortiz is currently leading all Hall of Fame candidates. The Baseball Hall of Fame Tracker currently has 43.9% of the ballots, and Ortiz has 83.7% of their votes.

Shaughnessy is entitled to his opinion, no matter how petty it appears to be. And Ortiz is well within his rights to respond, especially to someone who also accused him of steroid use during his playing career, with no other proof than the fact that he was of a certain age and Dominican.

According to Ortiz, Shaughnessy “never apologized.”