MLB insider makes Andy Pettitte a Hall of Fame villain, conveniently forgets David Ortiz

As New York Yankees left-hander Andy Pettitte somewhat miraculously moves towards inclusion in a future Baseball Hall of Fame class — it won't happen this year, but he's suddenly trending positively for Year 9 or 10 — USA Today's Bob Nightengale has moved the PED goalposts yet again in an effort to cast Pettitte as the fly in the ointment.

Once upon a time, the standard was that any positive PED test or association would be disqualifying for election (for the staunchest among us). That resulted in a lot of phony turning the other way around the elections of Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio and Mike Piazza. Most agreed it was likely that at least one of the three had credibly used steroids during their careers. Without a smoking gun, though, voters elevated them as paragons of a dirty era, closing their eyes to the possibility because they still technically could.

When David Ortiz came up for election, the standard changed. Ortiz didn't just blossom overnight during the steroid era; he had a credible positive test to his name. Yes, the circumstances surrounding it were somewhat murky, as any New Englander will remind you with some spittle in your ear, but Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were among the 104 names listed in an anonymous 2003 survey who reported a positive test. The results were revealed in 2009; at the time, Ortiz was "listed as having tested positive for performance-enhancing substances in 2003, lawyers with knowledge of the results told The New York Times," according to ESPN.

At the time, Ortiz made a strong statement, vowing that he would eventually resurface for air when he knew more information:

"I want to talk about this situation and I will as soon as I have more answers," Ortiz stated on that afternoon in 2009. "In the meantime I want to let you know how I am approaching this situation. One, I have already contacted the Players Association to confirm if this report is true. I have just been told that the report is true. Based on the way I have lived my life, I am surprised to learn I tested positive.

"Two, I will find out what I tested positive for. And, three, based on whatever I learn, I will share this information with my club and the public. You know me -- I will not hide and I will not make excuses."

Would anyone like to guess whether he eventually hid and made excuses?

Instead, Ortiz eventually leaned on the discrediting of the 2003 test that Rob Manfred conveniently provided as a cover around the time of the slugger's 2016 retirement. Manfred was, of course, not the commissioner at the time, nor was he in charge of the 2003 survey; who knows what information he was privy to? Apparently, he knew just enough to cloud Ortiz's guilt, noting that the survey "returned at least 10 scientifically questionable results" (but gave no indication that any of these was Ortiz's, only that it technically could not be ruled out).

Ortiz echoes that sentiment whenever he speaks on the issue — which is rarely. After being elected to Cooperstown in his first attempt, the Sox slugger noted, “We had someone coming out with this one list that you don’t know what anybody tested positive for. All of the sudden, people are pointing fingers at me but then we started being drug tested and I never failed a test. What does that tell us?”

The company line is now that Ortiz might have been among the 10 questionable results, or might have tested positive for a supplement that eventually was deemed not to cross MLB's threshold of illegality under their post-formal testing rules. It's possible. It's also possible that he took PEDs, knowingly or otherwise, in 2003, then backtracked when things got more stringent. Regardless, Ortiz is fairly obviously the current Hall of Famer with the most blatant steroid link ... but don't tell that to Nightengale, whose scathing column published ahead of the Hall's latest results show places Pettitte directly in the crosshairs, framing his potential election as the never-going-back moment of steroid reckoning.

Because, of course, now that Ortiz is in, a PED link isn't a strong enough red flag. Suddenly, the dividing line has become admission of PED usage, which is conveniently the main difference between Pettitte's case and Papi's.

"Still, the elephant in the room is that Pettitte was an admitted PED user," wrote Nightengale, "and the Baseball Writers' Association of America has made it quite clear how it views steroid users."

Apparently, Pettitte's humble contrition was a bridge too far. Instead, he should've nebulously threatened to find the real killer while casting doubt on the legitimacy of the testing process like Ortiz did.

Yankees' Andy Pettitte's surging Hall of Fame case has Bob Nightengale overlooking David Ortiz's PED past

Pettitte's PED connection is more ironclad than Ortiz's because Pettitte chose not to run from it. He appeared on the dreaded Mitchell Report, then admitted he'd used HGH on two separate occasions in an effort to speed his recovery from an elbow injury in 2002. At the time, the lefty claimed he never touched it in an effort to enhance his performance while healthy, and never experimented with steroids.

You may choose to believe him or you may choose to push back on that assertion. You may believe that Pettitte's Hall case is borderline enough for the PED admission to be completely disqualifying. You may believe that "being caught and suspended by MLB" is a uniquely bad steroid offense, keeping Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez outside looking in while welcoming Pettitte, Ortiz, and several more nebulous cohorts into the rotunda. All of these viewpoints are defensible, if you believe them fervently.

But if you believe that PED admission is the dealbreaker, you're basically admitting that you enjoyed David Ortiz's career to the point that you were willing to look the other way and join him in muddying the waters when he was up for election, and have now chosen to hold Pettitte's contrition against him. I'd much rather watch someone own and explain their indiscretions than scramble and employ Manfred to defend them in the court of public opinion (and, let's be honest, the public has already loudly rendered their opinion that David Ortiz is cool because he beat the Yankees, and they could not care less).

And, like Ortiz, Pettitte never again tested positive once MLB's more stringent rules were in place. They have that in common.