President Donald Trump announced that he would award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Roger Clemens, calling the seven-time Cy Young Winner “maybe the greatest pitcher of all time.”

During a rally in San Antonio, Trump renewed his calls for Clemens to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. That’s an honor that Clemens has yet to receive because of suspicions that he used steroids during his 24-year career.

“We’re giving him the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” Trump said. “And, along with the Congressional Medal of Honor, it’s the highest award bestowed upon anyone.”

The President continued, “He’ll be in the Hall of Fame someday, but he deserves it. One of the greatest athletes, and maybe the greatest pitcher, of all time.” 

He added that the medal “is a big step up from the Hall of Fame.”

Clemens, who was attending the event, was called up to the stage by the President, where the retired pitcher offered, “Well, I’m stunned.” 

“This supersedes anything that I’ve obviously done in my playing career,” Clemens said. “And to get it from this man, this president, there wouldn’t be another president I’d want to get it from.”

Clemens, who was raised in Houston, said he was honored that the announcement came in Texas and added of Trump: “You’re talking about a winner. That’s a winner right there.”

The shadow of Roger Clemens continues on the baseball diamond as the Detroit Tigers have promoted Kody Clemens to the major league roster. Kody is Clemens’ youngest of his four sons and the third to have played professional baseball. Kody is the only one to have reached the major leagues, however. The 26-year-old was a third-round pick in 2018 out of the University of Texas and was playing with the Tiger’s triple-A affiliate in Toledo. The utility man had been batting .283 with a .316 OBP and a .527 SLG in Triple-A this season. He had amassed nine doubles, six triples and eight homers in 45 Triple-A games this season.

Clemens was ranked as the number 17th best prospect in Detroit’s system. Clemens was brought onto the roster to replace the injured Robbie Grossman, who sustained a neck sprain during Sunday’s matchup with the Cleveland Guardians. Clemens plans to wear number 21, the same number his father wore for the first 15 years of his legendary career. Clemens knows the pressure is immense due to his father’s accomplishments but shared with reporters his relief due to the difference in their positions. “Obviously, I’m trying to create my own career path here, but to wear his number is awesome,” Clemens said. “Luckily, we always say that I’m glad I’m a hitter, not a pitcher, so I don’t have to live up to what he did. Half a career as his is unbelievable.”

Meanwhile, the baseball legend himself was present for his son’s major league debut on Tuesday night. “I’m just really happy for him; he’s worked really hard to get here, and it has finally happened for him,” said the 59-year-old. “We got everyone into scramble mode yesterday to get up here.”

The Tigers are in need of offensive help this season as they hold a record of 17-29 and have a league 138 runs.

Major League Baseball announced Tuesday evening that, among the many deserving candidates on the ballot, the only player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2022 will be former Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, who received 77.9% of votes.

In his final appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot, Barry Bonds fell short of receiving the necessary 75% of votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America for enshrinement in Cooperstown, New York. The all-time home runs leader came in at 66%, his best showing throughout his 10 years on the ballot.

In fact, he gained votes each year, but now it’ll be up to the Today’s Game Committee to put the seven-time NL MVP among baseball’s greats. The committee considers retired MLB players no longer eligible for HoF election by the BBWAA, along with managers, umpires and executives, whose greatest contributions to the game were realized from the 1988-2016 era. The 16-person team will meet again in December; 12 votes are needed for induction.

Many of the voters vowed to never vote for a performance-enhancing drug user, which is why the former Giants left fielder is on the outside looking in—despite never testing positive for a banned substance during his MLB career. It’s also why pitcher Roger Clemens, also in his final year of eligibility, and Alex Rodríguez, his first year on the ballot, did not meet the three-quarters threshold.

In 2009, however, multiple news outlets reported that Ortiz was among the players who tested positive for a banned substance during a 2003 supposedly anonymous testing survey conducted by MLB.

“You can’t tell the story of baseball without David Ortiz. Congrats to him,” Giants pitcher Alex Wood tweeted Tuesday. “But if he can get into the HOF on the first try with a positive test on his résumé then how in god’s name does Bonds and Clemens not get in? The system is now officially broken in my eyes.”

“I know there are a lot of things going on, but to me, [Bonds] was a Hall of Famer way before everything, all the talk, all the things. This is a guy who played the game at a whole different level,” Ortiz said. “Not having (Bonds and Clemens) join me at this time is something that’s hard to believe, to be honest with you. Those guys did it all. It is what it is, and there’s nothing I personally can do about it.”

Bonds did not speak publicly—though he posted on Instagram, “CONGRATULATIONS Big Papi on your induction into the Hall of Fame! Well deserved…I love you my brother.”—following Tuesday’s news, but Clemens released his own statement on social media.

“My family and I put the HOF in the rear-view mirror ten years ago,” he said. “I didn’t play baseball to get into the HOF. I played to make a generational difference in the lives of my family. Then focus on winning championships while giving back to my community and the fans as well. It was my passion. I gave it all I had, the right way, for my family and for the fans who supported me. I am grateful for that support.”

Ortiz’ former teammate Curt Schilling also appeared on his 10th and final ballot this year.

“I’ll defer to the veterans committee and men whose opinions actually matter and who are in a position to actually judge a player,” Schilling wrote on his Facebook page.

The 2022 Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place July 24 and includes four Golden Days Era committee inductees—Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Minnie Miñoso, and Tony Oliva—and two Early Baseball Era committee inductees, Bud Fowler and Buck O’Neil.

Other former Giants who were on this year’s ballot include five-time All-Star and 2000 NL MVP Jeff Kent, who garnered 32.7% of the votes; two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum, who failed to reach the 5% necessary to remain on the ballot.

Baseball’s Hall of Fame elections sparked a war of words between two former Blue Jays pitchers as both Roger Clemens and Roy Halladay accused each other of using performance enhancing drugs.

Everything started when Halladay tweeted that neither Barry Bonds nor Clemens deserved to be elected to the Hall of Fame. The latter did, however see his votes increase to 45.2%; while he still fell short of the required 75%, he is certainly moving in the right direction.

Clemens then responded to Halladay, saying how disheartening it was to recieve phone calls and text messages from family and friends due to an uninformed tweet. He also had to take a dig at his accuser, noting “he was accused of using amphetamines.”  

Photo: Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens by Keith Allison, via Wikimedia Commons

Jorge Posada, the outspoken Yankees catcher from the team’s prolific 90s and early 2000s dynasty, is currently on a media tour for his book The Journey Home: My Life in Pinstripes.

And while on this tour, he has been asked about everything from deflate-gate to his thoughts on PEDs. With the latter, he spoke to CBS about his thoughts on steroids and how he feels about his former teammates using them. Basically, he did not have kind words for Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” Posada told CBS’ Mark Strassmann. “I really don’t. I think the guys that need to be in the Hall of Fame need to be a player that played with no controversy.”

When asked specifically about if Clemens and A-Rod should be in Cooperstown, the famous catcher adamantly said “No.” And afterwards, when being pressed about the idea of resentment, he talked about a Rodriguez situation that has clearly been bugging him.

“The only thing that I can think is 2003,” he reminisced. “You know, I was close to the MVP. Didn’t happen. Alex won the MVP and, you know, I think second, either Carlos Delgado or David Ortiz, I don’t remember. But you know, I was almost there. You know what could have happened if, you know it’s tough. It’s really tough.” Just to clarify, it was Delgado who finished in second that year.

Needless to say, it is going to be interesting to see if Posada and A-Rod talk when the catcher returns to Yankee Stadium for Bernie Williams’ jersey retirement ceremony on May 24.

The Yanks plan to retire Posada’s number 20 on Aug. 22.

There has been a consistent problem with the placing of athletes, from any sport, on a pedestal: especially since, all of these people are human, meaning most of the time the higher placement solely results in a greater fall. This goes from everything like Ray Rice’s very public suspension to the trials after MLB’s ‘steroid era.’ Particularly, the latter has been extremely interesting in the last few years, with the biogenesis scandal and, more importantly, the question should steroid users be allowed in the Hall of Fame?

And while there is certainly a stigma of mistrust about baseball from the late 1980s to the late 2000s, it is time to seriously consider allowing this particular group of players into the Hall of Fame. However, as recent votes have shown, the selection percentages of steroid candidates — Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa — has consistently decreased, suggesting that monumental athletes like Bonds and Clemens will never see the inside of Cooperstown, which is a downright shame.

Photo © ESPN

But, in my opinion, to deny these players from the baseball Hall of Fame would be a disservice to fans, as well as, the MLB. As much as Bud Selig and the writers want to erase any notion of the ‘steroid era’ from the record books, it is here to stay: Roger Clemens is in the top ten in career wins, has seven Cy Young awards, one MVP and is number three on the all time strikeouts list. And Barry Bonds, a seven time MVP, also just happens to be the all time leader in Home Runs. Unless you are going to erase these statistics, these players’ names will forever be etched in MLB history. And for the most part, this should be recognized: if you want to put an asterisk next to their names that is fine, but like it or not, these athletes helped shaped baseball into what it is today.

While there is no reasonable correlation between steroid use and the increased revenue of the MLB, it is no coincidence that since 1995 the “MLB revenue has grown a staggering 264 percent in 18 years:” from 2.2 billion (after inflation) in 1995 to over $8 billion in 2013. And though a good chunk of this increase is from the Internet and television deals, a portion could also be placed on the shoulders of late 90s personalities: the 1998 home run chase between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire, which was later dismantled in the aftermath of the PED scandal, was originally a gold mine for the MLB.

And I totally understand the argument that these players forever tampered with the game, resulting in a stigmatized view of the 90s. More importantly, it is hard to inform children on the negative side effects of the very powerful drug when their idols are taking it. However, after banning the substance in 1991, the MLB did very little to actually police the game: meaning Major League Baseball’s complacency allowed for the errors in the system. Therefore, the management should be blamed for the Wild West atmosphere, as much as the players.

Photo © ESPN

On top of this, as many writers have pointed out, it is not like Cooperstown is hallowed ground in the first place. As Bill Pennington of The New York Times addressed, “a frequent line of thinking is that there is a critical difference between crimes against society and crimes against baseball. A player can, for instance, neglect to pay his income taxes and remain in the good graces of the Hall of Fame (Duke Snider, class of 1980), but neglect to run out routine ground balls and it will undoubtedly cost the player Hall of Fame votes.”

So if one was to truly look at the pasts of Hall of Famers, countless players have distinguished offenses that are worse or on par with the so-called steroid-takers. For instance, Ty Cobb the lovable psychopathic racist, who along with Hall of Famer Tris Speaker, “was implicated in a game-fixing scheme.” Not to mention, both were alleged members of the Ku Klux Klan: something widely believed, even if it was never proven. Even Orlando Cepeda’s 1970s drug charge did not prevent him from garnering his spot in 1999.

And what about the players that slipped through the cracks and made Cooperstown? There have been some allegations thrown around that Hall of Fame players were actively doping in the 70s and 80s: and what about some of the greats — Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays to name a few — who admitted to using amphetamines, which many deem to be a performance enhancing drug. So do you remove these legends from the Hall of Fame? I am not here to badmouth players who worked tirelessly to get in, but the writers and the MLB cannot continue with this hypocrisy of banning certain players from Cooperstown. So yes, in my opinion, both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens deserve their place in the Hall of Fame — with an asterisk if that makes you feel any better. Especially since, all the MLB and the writers would have to do is take a good hard look at their current stock to realize there are worse indelible marks than steroids.