Ex-player Ortiz put trust in his fans

Let down guard in troubled area of his hometown

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — Beloved in his hometown, David Ortiz traveled the dangerous streets of Santo Domingo with little or no security, trusting his fans to protect him.

Big Papi’s guard was down even at hotspots like the

Dial Bar and Lounge, where the Dominican business and entertainment elite can cross paths with shadier figures in a country where fortunes are often made in drug smuggling and money laundering.

As the former Boston Red Sox slugger lies in intensive care in Boston, recovering from the bullet fired into his back at the Dial on Sunday, police are investigating what aspect of the national hero’s life made him the target of what appeared to be an assassination attempt.

Ortiz was relaxed at the open-air hotspot Sunday, his back to the sidewalk, when a gunman — a passenger on a motorcycle — got off the bike just before 9 p.m., approached the retired ballplayer, 43, and fired a single shot at close range

before escaping.

Enraged fans captured the motorcyclist, 35, and beat him bloody before handing him over to police, and authorities said a second suspect also was arrested late Tuesday but gave no details.

Doctors in Santo Domingo removed Ortiz’s gallbladder and part of his intestines, and the former ballplayer was then flown to Boston for further treatment Monday night, undergoing two hours of exploratory

surgery.

Ortiz’s wife, Tiffany, said he was “stable, awake and resting comfortably” at Massachusetts General Hospital and was expected to remain there for several days.

The motorcyclist, Eddy Vladimir Feliz Garcia, who has an arrest for drug possession, was facing a charge of being an accomplice in an attempted murder, authorities said.

His lawyer, Deivi Solano, said Feliz Garcia had no idea who he’d picked up and what was about to happen when he stopped to take a fare.

Ortiz has a six-bedroom, $6 million

home in the wealthy Boston suburb of Weston, Massachusetts, thathesharedwithhiswifeand three children but has put the place up for sale. He visits his father and sister in Santo Domingo about six times a year, according to a close friendwhospoketotheaponcondition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Ortiz stayed at his father’s apartment and was active on the social scene in the capital, hitting nightspots with a small group of friends.

Ortiz couldn’t avoid running across unsavory characters on the Santo Domingo social scene

but kept his distance once he was warnedabouttheirshadybackgrounds, the friend said.

Police are investigating whether some brief relationship formed in Santo Domingo set in motion achainofeventsthatledtothe shooting, a second law enforcement official told the AP.

Ortiz felt completely secure in his hometown, the friend said, with adoring fans greeting him wherever he went.

“He felt protected by the people,” the friend said. “Even the guys in the dangerous neighborhoods respected him.”