Hell hath no fury like a baseball player scorned by a Hall of Fame voter.
Longtime Boston Globe columnist and reputed contrarian Dan Shaughnessy is not voting for Red Sox great David Ortiz for the Baseball Hall of Fame. The man known as Big Papi didn’t seem to be too caught off guard by the snub.
“You know that Dan Shaughnessy has been an a–hole to everybody,” Ortiz said on WEEI’s “Meloni and Fauria” on Wednesday. “What can I tell you? It’s not a surprise to me, it’s not a surprise to y’all that he didn’t vote for me.
“What can I do? Dan’s not gonna stop anything. He’s just one guy that didn’t vote for you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. But I mean, this is a guy who likes giving a hard time to everyone, so you’ve got to love him that way.
Ortiz did not seem to believe Shaughnessy’s vote withholding is an abuse of power.
David Ortiz had some choice words for Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy, who did not vote for the ex-Red Sox slugger on his Hall of Fame ballot. Getty Images
Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy in 2018. Getty Images for UNICEF“He’s got no damn power, bro,” Ortiz said. “You know that. He’s just got the power of the pen to write what he believes on. But everyone knows he’s an asshole. What else can you do?”
Ortiz has reason to be confident he will be enshrined in Cooperstown in his first time on the ballot. A 10-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion with the Red Sox, he has received 83.7 percent of votes from writers who have made their selections public so far according to the Baseball Hall of Fame tracker.
While this sample includes slightly less than half of the eligible voters, the current count for Ortiz is comfortably above the 75-percent threshold for induction.
