TEARS IN HEAVEN
Emotional Ortiz honors mother who never saw his star shine
Ted Williams hit a home run in his last at-bat.
Carl Yastrzemski popped out to second.
On a damp, gray Sunday afternoon at Fenway Park, David Ortiz hit a 5-foot dribbler in front of the plate and was thrown out at first.
The way this is trending, look for Mookie Betts to take a called third strike in his last at-bat at the end of the 2036 season.
OK, so yesterday’s regular-season finale ended on a bad note for the Red Sox. Big Papi’s final at-bat took place in the ninth inning of Boston’s 2-1 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, and now the Sox have to trek out to Cleveland for Thursday’s Division Series opener.
You’ll have plenty of time to worry. For now, there’s this: The last installment of the three-day Big Papi Love Fest was perfectly staged and properly executed. It had all the chest-bumping and high-fiving you’d expect from a ceremony in which Ortiz’ buddies from the World Series teams of 2004, ’07 and ’13 appeared on the Fenway Park infield. Yet the hourlong affair wasn’t brash, it wasn’t in your face, and it didn’t lull us to sleep with endless speeches.
Yes, Mayor Marty Walsh, a legit Sox fan, told us that the sliver of roadway that connects Fenway Park with the Yawkey Way commuter-rail station will henceforth be known as “David Ortiz Drive.”
Yes, Gov. Charlie Baker, also a legit Sox fan, told us that the Brookline Avenue bridge that connects Fenway Park with Kenmore Square will henceforth be known as the “David Ortiz (Big Papi) Bridge.”
Yes, the Red Sox announced that Ortiz’ No. 34 will be retired next season. (My prediction: The Twins will be in town.)
Yes, the Red Sox are making a $1 million donation to the David Ortiz Foundation. Yes, good stuff. Tastefully done. But if you could have boiled the whole thing down one moment, it was David Ortiz, standing at home plate, holding the microphone, trying to find the words to honor his late mother, Angela Rosa Arias.
“I want to thank my mom,” he started to say, and then he paused for nearly 30 seconds, the crowd sending an ever-increasing roar of encouragement his way. He looked down at the ground, looked up, wiped a hand across his eyes, and said, “Whoooo! OK, I’m back.”
He paused again, and then said, “I want to thank you, mom. Wherever you are, I love you so much and I miss you.”
Ortiz’ mother was killed in a car crash in January of 2002. And here’s the thing: Had he never been a famous ballplayer, had he remained in Santo Domingo and been, say, a high-school teacher or a real-estate broker or maybe followed in his father’s footsteps by repairing cars, Ortiz surely would have wanted her to have been around all these years.
But Ortiz joined the Red Sox and became one of the most important athletes in Boston sports history. He ended games with clutch hits, helping a team that hadn’t won a championship in 86 years win three of them in 10 years. He became so big a star that his mere presence at a charity event makes the night a success. He’s donated some of his own millions to causes that have saved lives.
And his mother missed all that. David Ortiz missed giving her all that. It weighs on him.
Yes, he also thanked his father, Americo Enrique “Leo” Ortiz. He thanked him again after the game, thereby making Americo great again.
But that was easy: Big Papi’s papa was in attendance. Big Papi’s madre was not.
“I think we all understood, after every home run, why he looked up when he got to home plate, and it was very meaningful,” said former Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell, who played with Ortiz on the 2007 World Series winners. “I think he always had a little bit of flare in his game and in the way he is, but it seems like there was always a moment of reverence when he stepped on home plate and looked up to the ceiling.
“So I think that speaks to how much it affected him and how much respect he had for not only his mom when he was young but his dad to this day.”
Ortiz has never been lost for words. Even in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, he had the right words for the occasion, coarse though they were. But yesterday, talking about his mother?
“When you are going through celebrations,” Ortiz said after the game, “and you are going through good moments and times, and I have all my family on the field, my dad, my wife, my kids, my sisters, I feel like something’s missing.”
Now it’s the postseason, and Red Sox fans can kick back and root for David Ortiz to perform superhuman feats. But yesterday, for a few minutes, they had a chance to see him be entirely human, and in a way everyone can understand.