David Ortiz Calls Dan Shaughnessy An A-Hole On Live Radio Over Hall Of Fame Snub
BOSTON (CBS) -- Earlier this month, Dan Shaughnessy shared his Baseball Hall of Fame ballot -- a ballot which included only Jeff Kent and notably did not include David Ortiz.
While Shaughnessy's obviously entitled to his opinion, so is Ortiz. And the Red Sox legend let his feelings be known on the writer's decision to leave him off the ballot.
"You know Dan Shaughnessy has been an a--hole to everybody, so what can I tell you?" Ortiz said on Merloni & Fauria on WEEI on Wednesday. "It's not a surprise for me, it's not a surprise for y'all. Now he didn't vote for me, so what can I do? I mean, seriously, that's not gonna stop anything. It's just one guy that didn't vote for you, and there's nothing you can do about it."
Ortiz and Shaughnessy do have one known issue from Ortiz's playing career. It stems from a 2013 interaction when Shaughnessy asked Ortiz about being suspected of steroid use, based on his age and his native country being the Dominican Republic. Shaughnessy wrote that Ortiz "fit all the models." Two years later, Ortiz wrote, "I wanted to kill this guy. But you can't react. That's what they want."
Ortiz also added: "He never apologized."
(Ortiz never failed a PED test during his career, but he was named in a 2009 New York Times report about testing positive for a banned substance in 2003, when MLB instituted anonymous testing to determine if formal testing was necessary.)
Whether or not that history has any bearing on the present isn't known, but Ortiz made his stance on Shaughnessy clear.
"He's got no damn power, bro. You know that," Ortiz said Wednesday. "He's just got the power of the pen to write whatever he believe on. But everybody knows that he's an a--hole. What else can you do?"
