A FITTING FAREWELL
Where better for ‘end’ than Bronx?
The David Ortiz Farewell Tour has been a six-month lovefest, with enough speeches to fill the Congressional Record, enough paintings to command a wing at the MFA. Ortiz has had more hugs than you’ll find in all three Godfather movies combined. He has been given tubs of peanut butter, jars of barbecue sauce, bottles of wine and a 34-pound — get it? — northwest king salmon.
Teams have written out checks to the David Ortiz Children’s Fund. Teams have written out checks to local charities in his honor.
Cowboy hats. Cowboy boots. Cowboy belts. Cigars. The Baltimore Orioles, falling like a rock in the AL East, still managed to take first place in Top Gag Gifts when they presented Big Papi with the actual dugout phone he famously battered — with, you know, his bat — after being rung up a few years back. It’s a fine collection of stuff, and Ortiz has often joked about how he’ll probably need to build a place to store it all. Unless someone gives him a place, and, yes, we’re talking to you, Reeds Ferry Sheds! But not counting the upcoming playoffs, David Ortiz has one more road stop this season: Following an off-day on Monday, the Red Sox close out their regular-season away slate with a three-game series against the Yankees in New York. It’s not just appropriate that it’s at Yankee Stadium where Ortiz will be playing his final regular-season road game. It’s magnificent. It’s perfect. Big Papi’s very presence has been a walking, talking reminder of what the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry meant back in the not-long-ago past. And to borrow from James Earl Jones’ Terence Mann character in “Field of Dreams,” he’s a reminder of what can be good again about this rivalry. Ortiz is the last remaining active player on either team who participated in the epic 2004 American League Championship Series, which the Red Sox stormed back to win in seven games after dropping the first three. In becoming the only team in baseball history to win a series after being down 0-3, the Red Sox also used it as a Bronx stepping stone to the World Series, where they swept the Cardinals for their first championship since 1918. That series wasn’t all David Ortiz. But it was mostly David Ortiz. The numbers are eye-popping — a .387 average (12-for-31), three home runs, 11 RBI — but it was the dispersal of Big Papi’s offense in Games 4 and 5 that’ll be remembered. As in for as long as we’re all alive. In Game 4, he hit a tworun walk-off home run in the 12th inning to lead the Red Sox to a 6-4 victory. In the 14th inning of Game 5, he singled to center to drive in the deciding run in a 5-4 Boston victory.
The other players in that series, including big-ticket stars Pedro Martinez and Derek Jeter, Curt Schilling and Mariano Rivera, have faded away. Lesser-known players such as Curtis Leskanic and Felix Heredia, Mike Myers and Bubba Crosby, have moved on. Yankees manager Joe Torre works in the commissioner’s office. Boston’s skipper, Terry Francona, manages the Cleveland Indians and could well be drawing up plans on how to pitch to Ortiz in the postseason.
Until last month, just one Yankee remained from the 2004 ALCS: Alex Rodriguez. But then A-Rod was eased into an in-season retirement — he played his last game on Aug. 12 — and that left Ortiz, alone, as the only active player who could say, “Let me tell you, man, ’cuz I was there!”
Maybe A-Rod returns next season as the DH for, say, the Tampa Bay Rays. Either way, a magical era in Red Sox-Yankees history is coming to an end this week in the Bronx. Yankees fans wont miss Ortiz the way Red Sox fans do, of course, just as their memories of the 2004 ALCS don’t sync up with the way Red Sox fans remember it.
There’s been some kind of lunatic-fringe movement to encourage Yankees fans to moon Ortiz when he has his last Yankee Stadium at-bat. But the plan isn’t getting much exposure, so to speak, and Ortiz will likely have a fine time in this last Yankee Stadium roundup.
The Yankees don’t need to give Ortiz peanut butter or cowboy boots, though they’ll probably present some kind of gift. They don’t need to show a video, though they probably will. They don’t need to make any speeches, but . . . and so on.
No matter what the Yankees do, or don’t do, this will be the ultimate road sendoff for David Ortiz.