David Ortiz Will Find Out If He's A Hall Of Famer Tuesday Night
BOSTON (CBS) -- Tuesday is the day for David Ortiz. It's a day that will entail a lot of waiting by the phone, but all of that waiting could be worth it in the end.
Tuesday is the day that Ortiz will find out if he'll be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. The three-time World Series champ and 10-time All-Star with the Red Sox has the résumé for Cooperstown, and soon he'll find out if he has the votes.
UPDATE: Ortiz was elected into the Hall of Fame, receiving 77.9 percent of the votes.
Ortiz needs at least 75 percent of voters to check his box for enshrinement in 2022, and he's been trending in the right direction since ballots started to become public. He's been on 84 percent of the public ballots so far, though candidates usually have a dip when the final barrage of ballots are counted. So there remains a chance that Ortiz may just miss out on getting a call to the Hall Tuesday evening.
But if the early numbers hold up, "Big Papi" would be the only member of this year's class, with Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds both coming up short in their 10th and final year of eligibility.
The Red Sox DH certainly deserves his spot in Cooperstown. Ortiz mashed 541 regular season homers through his career, averaging 36 dingers and 119 RBIs for his career over 162 games. He set a new Red Sox single-season record with 54 homers in 2006.
But it was his big swings in the playoffs that ring the loudest on Ortiz's résumé, and had Red Sox ownership calling him "the greatest clutch hitter in Red Sox history." Ortiz put the Red Sox on his back during the team's 2004 World Series run, becoming a Boston folk legend in the ALCS as he clubbed back-to-back walk-off hits in Games 4 and 5 as the team faced elimination against the New York Yankees. Ortiz earned series MVP honors as he hit .387 with three homers and 11 RBIs as Boston erased a 3-0 series deficit to stun New York and the baseball world.
A week later, Ortiz and the Red Sox were World Series champs, ending an 86-year championship drought.
Ortiz and the Red Sox were champs again in 2007, and though he didn't have any signature moments during that postseason, he hit .370 with three homers and 10 RBIs over 14 playoff games.
Ortiz's final World Series run in 2013 was his best. While he hit just .091 against the Detroit Tigers in the ALCS, his game-tying grand slam in Game 2 into the Boston bullpen is what sparked the Red Sox to win the series. He went on to hit a ridiculous .688 with two homers, two doubles and six RBIs in Boston's six-game series win over the St. Louis Cardinals in the Fall Classic, earning series MVP honors and his third World Series ring.
The biggest question with Ortiz isn't should he be in, but when will he make it. Some fickle baseball writers may not want Ortiz to make it on his first ballot. Some will use the fact that Ortiz was primarily a DH against him, while others will point to the 2009 New York Times report that revealed that Ortiz tested positive for something in 2003, when MLB did anonymous testing to determine if it had a PED problem. Ortiz has maintained that he never took steroids, and points to all the drug tests that he passed the rest of his career as proof.
The numbers are there, and if for some reason those aren't enough, the clutch moments should put Ortiz over the edge. We'll find out if baseball writers feel the same way around 6 p.m. Tuesday evening.