‘Clutch’ Ortiz a home run for Sox
In sporting terms, the greatest compliment you can pay someone is to call them a “clutch” player. You’re saying that person delivers the goods when it really matters, when the game is on the line. While others are feeling the heat, with throats closing up and knees knocking, the clutch performer relishes the situation. Some guys make themselves as small as possible, hoping not to have the burden of the moment thrust upon them, but the clutch player is raring to go and the more pressure the better.
Today, barring a rainout, we will witness the final regular season home game of the greatest clutch hitter in Red Sox history, David Ortiz.
Being labeled as “clutch” is mostly a matter of perception. There are students of any given sport who can supply you with reams of statistics in support of someone being clutch (or the opposite, a choker), but those universally recognized as clutch have left no doubt and don’t need statistical backup. They’ve come through when everyone was watching, in the biggest games, on the biggest stages. Ortiz is such a player.
Our region has been particularly blessed with clutch players. Larry Bird was deadly any time money was on the line. Go back a bit further in Celtics history and you’d be hard-pressed to top Bill Russell. In hockey, those of us of a certain age witnessed Bobby Orr doing things thought impossible until he we saw him skate. Carl Yastrzemski was no slouch; his 1967 season was a marvel. Of course, in football, Tom Brady comes immediately to mind. Brady’s heroics have become so commonplace that we pretty much expect them, rather than being amazed by them.
That’s the true test of a clutch player’s value. As sports fans, we always hope for the best. Sometimes, we receive the jolt of adrenaline from someone unexpected (paging Dave Henderson, Dave Roberts, Gerald Henderson, Bernie Carbo and Malcolm Butler). That’s always a wonderful surprise. But, we expect Brady to succeed. When he doesn’t get the job done, that’s when we’re astonished. The same goes for Ortiz.
When Papi came to bat with the game on the line, we no longer just hoped he would get the hit we so desperately wanted. Instead, we believed he would get it. And he did, again and again.
2004. 2007. 2013. No Papi, no World Series championships. It’s as simple as that. Despite the individual nature of so much of baseball, it’s still a team sport. The Sox wouldn’t have won without contributions, some of them epic, from other players on those teams. But Ortiz delivered bolts of lightning that brought Boston fans to their feet, restoring hope in 2004 and making every playoff game since then one Sox fans expected to win instead of one in which they dreaded an inevitable misfortune. He took the socalled “Curse of the Bambino” and stomped on it, then buried it both deeply and definitively.
Due to an excellent season by the Red Sox — and an awesome one by Ortiz himself, one perhaps unmatched in the season of a player’s swan song — we get to see this magnificent baseball player for a while longer in the playoffs. Can he go out on top, with another championship? Maybe. I sure hope so, in any case.
No, change that. I don’t hope so. We have David Ortiz and I believe.