Big Papi’s exit unlike others
No mess, no strife, no controversy
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It didn’t have to end this way. In fact, it usually hasn’t. For a franchise that has struggled frequently to send off its legends and linchpins with much grace, the Red Sox (and their fans) are enjoying the most amicable goodbye with a legend since Ted Williams.
Much of this has to do with the 40-year-old Ortiz dictating the timing of his exit. And a great deal has to do with the prodigious numbers he is posting during his swan song.
Without the latter, we will never know if this season-long sayonara would still have gone so swimmingly, but chances are it would — considering how genial and invested in his postplaying career Ortiz is.
He’s setting a new example for teammates who have taken note of the ugly flip side of what becoming an ex-Red Sox entails.
“Since I’ve been here he’s the only one who’s leaving on his own terms,” said Dustin Pedroia. “It’s pretty cool to watch. He’s leaving at the peak of his game, too, which as a teammate, you don’t want to see him leave. But he’s earned the right to say when he wants to stop.”
It’s way too easy to start listing examples of very important Red Sox figures who burned, at least temporarily, bridges with the Red Sox on their way out of town.
When then-general manager Dan Duquette sent Roger Clemens off into his “twilight” after the 1996 season, he ignited a feud between Clemens and the organization that featured the pitcher shaking his fist toward the owners’ box after his first triumphant return to Fenway Park with the Blue Jays the following year.
Or Mo Vaughn, who felt the Red Sox never had his back and used an infamous episode concerning the Foxy Lady and a DUI allegation against him when they did not try to re-sign him after the 1998 season.
The hurt feelings between Wade Boggs, who left after a 1992 contract dispute, were finally soothed this season when a weeping Boggs returned to see his number retired on the rightfield Fenway Park facade.
The bungled contract talks between the ballclub and another Hall of Famer, Carlton Fisk, left Fisk fuming at the club for decades. Ancient history, you say? The current owners have hardly been immune from strife and grief left in the wake of departing players and employees.
When contract talks between Nomar Garciaparra and the ballclub hit a wall after the 2003 season, the dispute became public and soured Garciaparra. By the time he got shipped out of town in the middle of the 2004 season, the relationship between one of the most talented Red Sox players ever and the ballclub had withered to a few strands of decency.
After Pedro Martinez rejected a last-minute, half-hearted contract offer from the Red Sox after the 2004 championship season when he was a free agent, he went on a scorched-earth diatribe against GM Theo Epstein right after his introductory press conference at Shea Stadium when he became a Met.
That rift took a couple of years to repair itself, but it’s fine now.
When manager Terry Francona was fired and Epstein left — for good — after the September 2011 collapse, the fallout was swift and severe. The club twisted itself into knots in order to say that Francona wasn’t fired — what else does not renewing a contract mean? — and Francona went on deliver an unforgettable book about his Red Sox years in which he lobbed a few firebombs at his superiors.
The reported low-ball offer that Jon Lester received in 2014 spring training dismayed the southpaw to the point where he never regained total trust in the club’s sincerity in re-signing him.
The firing of GM Ben Cherington last August was a relatively drama-free good-bye, thanks in great part to Cherington’s vast reservoir of reserve and class. Still, he was stunned by it.
And there was the bungled heave-ho of NESN’s Don Orsillo, who had to endure the indignity of broadcasting the final month-plus of last season knowing that he was not coming back. The news crushed Orsillo, who has bounced back with a nice gig in San Diego but is still nursing some deep wounds.
So, yes, Ortiz’ goodbye to the Red Sox is the exception. He’s hard-pressed to say why that is.
“I don’t know man, God always has his purpose,” said Ortiz. “I guess I’m one of those guys who has been blessed to be able to do it that way. Hopefully there will be some more. Because I’m pretty sure that when people became fans of the player, they always would expect to see that player leave that game on a high note. So hopefully it will continue to happen.”
One can only hope Ortiz’ unique charms will leave a legacy for how to say “so long.”
Long goodbyes are hard enough.
Messy ones are way worse.