Stranger HOF things

 So Big Papi is in the baseball Hall of Fame, but not for the reason a bunch of folks are claiming. They're saying the writers voted for him because he's a good guy, and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are not, and that's why Papi is in and Bonds and Clemens, their final shot now exhausted, have been cast into outer darkness.

The Blob's official position on this is it's ridiculous.

Bad guys get into the Hall of Fame all the time, starting with the first HOFer, a raving sociopath named Ty Cobb. And if it's such a popularity contest among the voting writers, how did Ted Williams and Steve Carlton get in, considering how much they hated the writers?

Silly. Completely silly.

The whole idea, first of all, disses David Ortiz, suggesting as it does it was his winning smile and not his baseball skills that put him over the top. This is also ridiculous, because David Ortiz got in on merit, and would have even if he regularly threw stuff at, say, Dan Shaughnessy -- which he probably should have, given that Shaughnessy is the only Boston writer who didn't vote for Papi, a dick move if ever there was one.

And Bonds and Clemens?

Saying they didn't get in because they, too, warred with the writers is a simpleton's view that obscures the real reason they didn't get in. And the real injustice.

The Blob has long maintained that a Hall of Fame that doesn't include one of the top five players in history, and the best pitcher of his generation, is a Hall of Fame that doesn't accurately reflect the game's history. And if you've ever been to Cooperstown, that's a serious charge, because Cooperstown is a shrine to history.

But of course there's the PED thing, and Clemens' alleged affair with a 15-year-old girl, the latter of which would be far more legitimate grounds to keep out the Rocket. It just won't do to be putting accused statutory rapists in the Hall, no matter how many other miscreants of various stripes already reside there.

But the PED thing?

Well, that's a judgment based on innuendo and rumor, considering neither Bonds nor Clemens ever showed red for PED use. That they juiced is probably undeniable, but, still. Due process ought to mean something in this country, quaint as it seems to have become.

Look. If I'd had a vote, I'd have voted at least for Bonds, on the theory that he was one of the top five players of all time long before he allegedly got frisky with the Cream and the Clear. And in any case, denying Bonds and/or Clemens for doing something Major League Baseball didn't initially give a hang about seems unfair -- and opens up an enormous can of worms.

Because if you're going to deny entry to the juicers from baseball's Steroids Era, what do you do with all the players you've already voted in from the Greenie Era? And by that I mean, all the players in the '60s, '70s and '80s who gobbled amphetamines like M&Ms to help get them through day games after night games.

Don't tell me that wasn't better baseball through chemistry. Please.

In any case, Bonds and Clemens now join Pete Rose as baseball's most famous outcasts. Pete, of course, would be in already if he could just stop lying. I mean, how absurd is it to bar him for gambling when baseball is now all in on gambling?

I mean, MLB now has not one but two Official Sports Betting Partners -- DraftKings and BetMGM. Good grief, there's even a sportsbook setting up shop right outside Wrigley Field.

That sound you hear is an especially bitter cackle from Charlie Hustle.

David Ortiz, on the other hand, is just laughing that big laugh of his. As he should.